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
Throw course history out the window this week, as the KLM Open will be played on a brand new course in the Netherlands. It’s the tournament’s seventh different track in its 97-year history.
The Dutch (yes, that’s the name of the course), originally opened in 2011, will host its first European Tour event. The course was designed by Colin Montgomerie and is intended to be a difficult links-style course with penal rough. Course management and accuracy should be crucial on this 6,981-yard Par 71 layout.
Thomas Pieters is the defending champion. Paul Casey won in 2014, and local home favorite Joost Luiten was the champion in 2013.
The Field
In addition to former champions Pieters and Luiten, there are plenty of names teeing it up this week that should be familiar to daily fantasy sports players.
The PGA Tour’s Byeong-Hun An actually began his career on the European Challenge Tour and won the 2015 BMW PGA Championship, a European Tour event.
Luiten and Pieters will be in the featured group with Bernd Wiesberger teeing off at 8:20 AM local time on Thursday. Ryder Cup team member Chris Wood will be playing with Thongchai Jaidee and last week’s Omega European Masters champion Alex Noren.
Adjusted Round Score
With no course history to utilize, it will benefit you to concentrate on finding the best overall golfers in the field.
High-Priced Tier: $9,000 and Higher
The red-hot Noren ranks second in the field in Long-Term Adjusted Round Score (LT Adj Rd Score) at 69.8. Moreover, his 67.8 Recent Adj Rd Score is first in the field by nearly a full stroke.
In his last five stroke-play events he has two wins and an eighth-place finish. He hasn’t missed a cut since the U.S. Open in June.
Noren’s 68.6 percent LT Greens in Regulation (GIR) mark is tied for 18th and his 12.7 LT Adjusted Birdies per Tournament (Adj Bird Avg) ranks 16th. His current 10.5 percent odds-to-win mark ranks behind only Pieters’.
Mid-Priced Tier: $7,000 to $8,900
With a LT Adj Rd Score of 70.3, Ross Fisher leads the mid-priced tier and ranks seventh overall. His 71.9 percent LT GIR is third in the field.
Fisher’s 12.4 Adj Bird Avg is inside the top-20 and his 63.0 LT Driving Accuracy (DA) percentage is inside the top-50 of this week’s field.
Players in this salary tier with comparable LT Adj Rd Scores, DA percentages, and Adj Bird Avgs have traditionally produced a +2.79 Plus/Minus on DraftKings with 58.o percent Consistency.
Value Tier: $6,900 and Lower
The 71.0 LT Adj Rd Score of Mikko Korhonen is the best score among the value tier golfers.
His 72.5 Recent Adj Rd Score derived from his last three tournaments tells a different story, however. Korhonen has missed three of his last four cuts and finished 62nd in the one tournament he did play on the weekend.
Korhonen’s 70.8 LT GIR percentage is sixth-best in the field, and despite his recent struggles, his metrics don’t look bad. His 69.5 percent Recent GIR and 66.2 percent Recent DA should set him up well on this track.
I wouldn’t touch Korhonen in cash, but I like him as a low-owned tournament play.
Greens in Regulation
Hitting Greens in Regulation to set up birdie chances on the fast greens will be a key to success this week.
High-Priced Tier: $9,000 and Higher
Nicolas Colsaerts‘ 72.6 percent LT GIR ranks second in the field and is the best mark in the high-priced tier.
Colsaerts’ 306.5-yard LT Driving Distance (DD) is the sixth-longest average in the field, but it remains to be seen if that distance will help him on this unknown course. His 54.7 LT DA is concerning for this week, however, because former KLM Champion Luiten has described the rough as “thick and juicy.”
Rough here at @GolfTheDutch is thick an juicy! You need to be straight!! Can you find the ball in the picture? pic.twitter.com/KHQ6wfEDyN
— Joost Luiten (@joostluiten) August 30, 2016
Colsaerts did finish third at the Scottish Open and 46th at The Open Championship earlier this year, so he has proven capable of finding his way around a links course.
On the two occasions that Colsaerts has been priced above $9,000 this season, he has scored 24.5 DraftKings points and 101.5 DK points. He’s a high-variance tournament play with Upside.
Mid-Priced Tier: $7,000 to $8,900
Richard Bland is coming off a fifth-place finish at the European Masters and has made 12 of 13 cuts since April. He has a top-15 Recent Adj Rd Score.
Bland’s 70.7 LT GIR percentage is eighth overall, and his 73.6 percent Recent GIR is even better.
His 70.5 LT Adj Rd Score ranks seventh in the field, and his 13.7 Adj Bird Avg is tied for ninth.
Golfers in this salary tier with similar LT Adj Rd Scores and LT Bird Avgs have previously provided a +1.09 Plus/Minus with 54.0 percent Consistency on DK.
Bland’s accurate game and his recent form point to him playing well this weekend.
Value Tier: $6,900 and Lower
Who the hell is Wil Besseling? He’s a Dutch (local narrative alert) golfer who plays primarily on the Challenge Tour where he has one win back in 2008. He also won the Dutch Amateur Championship in 2001 just two years after learning how to play. He finished T47 at the KLM Open in 2015.
That’s great, but what’s extremely intriguing about him is the 90.3 percent LT GIR he’s posted in his past 23 tournaments. Additionally, Besseling’s 57.1 LT Scrambling mark is the 10th-highest percentage in the field.
He has a sixth- and eighth-place finish in two of his most recent Challenge Tour events, so he can play, albeit against lesser competition. His 72.4 LT Adj Rd Score isn’t great, and it’s a product of his 22.4 percent Field Score, the third-lowest mark overall this week.
Per our Trends tool, the very few golfers in the value tier who have LT GIR percentages higher than 75.0 have returned a horrific -10.27 Plus/Minus on DK.
Bonus
Pro Trends
Pieters and Noren are tied with eight Pro Trends, the highest number in this week’s field.
Golfers priced at $11,000 or higher with seven to nine Pro Trends have historically generated a +2.52 Plus/Minus on DK.
Good luck!
