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
In 2015, Matthew Fitzpatrick took down the British Masters for his first European Tour victory. At that time Fitzpatrick was a 21-year-old rookie. Shane Lowry, Chris Wood, Soren Kjeldsen, and Luke Donald are just a few of the well-known players who tried to track Fitzpatrick down on Sunday.
Speaking of Donald, he is the tournament’s host this week at The Grove in Hertfordshire. The Grove hosted the WGC – American Express Championship in 2006. Tiger Woods won that event at 23-under par.
Plenty of quality golfers will tee it up this week, including six Major Champions, two former World No. 1s, and 20 Ryder Cup players. Jose-Maria Olazabal, a 23-time European Tour champion and two-time winner of The Masters will be making his first appearance in a tournament since he played in the 2015 Masters. Olazabal finished T15 at this course in 2006.
The Course
Because the WGC tournament back in 2006 is all we have to draw from, we will use that as our guide.
Tiger hit 90-plus percent of the Greens in Regulation (GIR) that week, which was obviously the best mark in the field. He also finished the week ranked in the top-five for Driving Distance (DD), Driving Accuracy (DA), and Scrambling (SC).
Four of the top-five finishers in 2006 finished eighth or better in GIR, and none of them was worse than 12th. All five finished 17th or better in SC, and three of them ranked inside the top nine. So GIR and SC it is!
Greens In Regulation
High-Priced Tier: $9,000 and Higher
England’s own Ross Fisher has a Long-Term (LT) GIR percentage of 72.8 — the highest mark in the high-priced tier. Fisher’s LT Adjusted Round Score (Adj Rd Score) ranks 10th in the field, and he has been playing well recently. Fisher has finished in second place in his last two tournaments and has the third-highest Odds to Win (5.3 percent). Tee up Fisher in all formats.
Fitzpatrick is the defending champion and has the second-best LT GIR rate (72.5 percent) in the high-priced tier. In his last five events he’s missed two cuts and finished fifth, seventh, and 16th. His all-or-nothing form makes him a great play in guaranteed prize pools.
Mid-Priced Tier: $7,000 to $8,900
Richard Bland is another home-grown Englishman looking to claim his country’s Masters. Bland’s 71.1 percent LT GIR ranks 11th, and his 70.3 LT Adj Rd Score is 16th in the field. His 14.4 LT Adjusted Birdies Per Tournament (Adj Bird Avg) is the third-best score overall. Per our Trends tool, golfers in this salary tier with comparable recent metrics have produced a +2.04 Plus/Minus on DraftKings.
France’s Gregory Bourdy finished 18th in both the U.S. Open and PGA Championship earlier this summer. He hasn’t played a ton of golf since then but he does have the 12th-highest LT GIR rate (70.7 percent) in the field. His 70.5 LT Adj Rd Score is tied for 12th, and his LT Adj Bird Avg is tied for 13th overall. Bourdy has played well in big tournaments and could be overlooked in this field. He is an intriguing GPP play.
Value Tier: $6,900 and Lower
Scotland’s David Drysdale is one of the most accurate players in the field. Both his 72.7 percent LT GIR and 71.1 percent LT DA rank fourth in the field. He has made nine of his last 10 cuts, and he finished 12th at the European Masters in September. At just $6,100 this week he could be an integral part of a successful stars-and-scrubs lineup construction. Golfers in this salary tier with comparable LT accuracy have previously yielded a +2.23 Plus/Minus on DK.
Scrambling
High-Priced Tier: $9,000 and Higher
Donald is not only the host this week, but his 63.2 percent LT SC mark is top of the field, as is his 88.1 percent strength of field rating. His 65.1 percent LT GIR isn’t elite, but his 69.7 LT Adj Rd Score is tied for third overall. Donald finished T5 in this event last year (at a different course) and finished T6 at this track in 2006. Donald has had an uninspiring season thus far but is surely worth playing in a couple GPP lineups this week.
Thomgchai Jaidee has a top-three LT SC rate (60.6 percent), a top-10 LT Adj Rd Score (70), and a top-25 LT Adj Bird Avg (12.6). Thongchai recently finished ninth at the Shinhan Donghae Open on the Asian Tour and finished 20th in his most recent start on the European Tour. Jaidee won the Open de France earlier this season and finished T9 at this track in 2006. High-priced golfers with comparable LT metrics have generated a +3.14 Plus/Minus on DK.
Mid-Priced Tier: $7,000 to $8,900
Welshman Bradley Dredge maintains a 60.3 percent LT SC mark (fourth overall) to go along with his 66.2 percent LT GIR. Dredge’s 70.1 LT Adj Rd Score is tied for 12th in the field. He’s in excellent form with 13th- and 11th-place finishes in his last two starts. Prior to that he missed two cuts and had a second-place finish. Priced at $8,200, Dredge is a boom-or-bust GPP play this week.
Value Tier: $6,900 and Lower
England’s David Howell finished T13 at the WGC event here in 2006. He fired back-to-back opening rounds of 66 and was tied for second place behind Tiger going into the weekend. Howell’s 61 LT SC percentage ranks second overall and his 70.7 LT Adj Rd Score is inside the top 25 this week. Howell finished third at the Czech Masters in August. Value tier golfers with similar LT metrics have delivered a modest +1.23 Plus/Minus on DK with 51.7 percent Consistency.
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Good luck with the British Masters! If you’re new to the site, be sure to check out our suite of Tools, containing the PGA Player Models and Trends used to research for this piece.
