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
Course history truthers will have to deal with a small sample this week, since this is only the third edition of the Czech Masters played at the Albatross Golf Resort in Prague, Czech Republic.
The 24-year old, long-hitting Belgian Thomas Pieters, whom you may recognize from the Olympics, won the event last year with four birdies in the final ten holes. Jamie Donaldson won the inaugural event in 2014. Both players are back for this week’s tournament and are two of the five highest-priced players in the field.
After winning this tournament last year, Pieters went on to win the 2015 KLM Open, crowning him as the only Belgian to win multiple European Tour events in the same season.
The course is long, and in 2015 the two highest finishers ranked first and second in Driving Distance (DD) for the week, and nine of the top 12 finishers were ranked 24th or better in DD.
In 2014, five of the top 10 finishers ranked 18th or better in DD among players with recorded stats. (Merrick Bremner, Peter Hedblom, and Garrick Porteous have no official stats recorded.)
Greens in Regulation (GIR) is also important, as seven of the top 12 finishers in 2015 ranked eighth or higher in GIR for the week. None of them ranked worse than 22nd. In 2014, six of the top 10 finishers ranked 10th or better in GIR. Nine of 10 finished no worse than 21st.
There’s lot’s of water in play, including on the finishing 18th hole, so accuracy off the tee shouldn’t be be completely ignored.
In 2015, 50 percent of the top 12 finished the week ranked 14th or better in Driving Accuracy (DA).
It didn’t seem to be as important in 2014, as six of 10 finished 34th or worse in DA. During the last 12 months, however, some changes were made to the course, including the addition of four new lakes, two of which come into play. It remains to be seen what kind of affect this has on accuracy stats.
The Field
This year’s field may be the strongest in the tournament’s brief history and includes Lee Westwood, who’s looking to lock up a spot on the Ryder Cup team along with fellow Englishmen Andy Sullivan and Matthew Fitzpatrick.
They will be joined by some familiar names in two-time major winner and wearer of strange pants John Daly and six-time PGA Tour winner Rory Sabbatini.
There’s also another intriguing name in the field: Chase Koepka, the younger brother of Brooks. Chase is following in his older brother’s footsteps by playing on the European Challenge Tour and hoping to get to the PGA Tour.
Before you start drooling all over yourself due to name recognition, know that Chase has played four events on the Challenge Tour since late June and made the cut only once, finishing 57th.
Adjusted Round Score
Sullivan and Westwood have the two best Long-Term Adjusted Round Scores (LT Adj Rd Score) in the field, which makes sense, as they’re more than likely the field’s two best golfers.
Sullivan leads the way with a 69.8 LT Adj Rd Score and backs that up with an impressive 67.8 Recent Adj Rd Score, also best in the field.
Sullivan’s 68.5 percent LT GIR is 12th and his 64.9 percent LT DA ranks 15th. He maintains the sixth-highest LT Adjusted Birdies Per Tournament Average (Adj Bird Avg) at 13.8.
Sullivan played this event in 2014 and finished 52nd. He is the most expensive golfer in the field, but he’s in top form and has the highest Odds to Win at 10 percent. He makes a great play.
Westwood is teeing it up in the Czech Republic for the first time in 19 years, hoping to secure a Ryder Cup spot. His 69.9 LT Adj Rd Score ranks second (behind only Sullivan’s) and is one of only two scores in the field below 70.
Lee’s 67.9 percent LT GIR ranks 17th and his LT Adj Bird Avg of 12.8 is 12th overall.
Westwood had made eight straight cuts, but most recently he finished 85th at the PGA Championship. His 9.1 percent Odds to Win are the second highest in the field.
Golfers with similar LT metrics have produced a +2.50 Plus/Minus on DraftKings with 57.0 percent Consistency.
Richard Bland is tied for the third-best Recent Adj Rd Score in the field at 69.0.
Bland’s 81.9 percent Recent GIR is massive, and the highest among any golfers with at least two starts in the last six weeks. His 73.2 percent Recent DA is tied for sixth, and his Recent Adj Bird Avg of 16 ranks seventh.
Bland has made nine of 10 cuts since April and his 83 percent Consistency this year, fifth in the field, makes him a formidable cash-game play.
Greens in Regulation
Somebody named Peter Whiteford leads the field in LT GIR with an impressive 72.8 percent. Besides his excellent GIR skills, however, he’s quite terrible. His 72.9 LT Adj Rd Score has been accumulated with a LT Field Strength of only 24.2 percent.
Whiteford has been a pro since 2002 but still plays on the Challenge Tour, another indication that he sucks at golf relative to the field. He has played in two European Tour events this year and missed the cut in both. Pretend that I never mentioned him.
Matthew Fitzpatrick, a player to whom you should pay attention, ranks third in the field with a 71.5 percent LT GIR. His 70.2 LT Adj Rd Score ranks third and his 70 percent LT DA is tied for second. He has a game that sets up well with the historical trends of this course’s brief history. He finished third here last year.
His form has been way out of whack lately, and he has missed four of five cuts since the U.S. Open. Fitzpatrick did win the Nordea Masters back in June, however, and if you believe that form is only temporary then he makes an excellent tournament play this week.
Another noteworthy name among the LT GIR leaders is Tommy Fleetwood, whose 70 percent ranks eighth. Fleetwood’s 70.6 LT Adj Rd Score is tied for fifth and his -4.5 Adjusted Par-5 Strokes is tied for sixth.
Fleetwood finished fifth here in 2014, and his 70 Course Adj Rd Score ranks sixth in the field. He makes an intriguing tournament play.
Lucas Bjerregaard has missed the cut at this event in both of his attempts but his recent form suggests that he’s primed to play well here.
His 77.8 Recent GIR is tied for fifth, his 71.4 percent Recent DA is tied for seventh, and his 304.8-yard Recent DD ranks eighth. Bjerregaard’s 71 Recent Adj Rd Score is tied with Fleetwood’s for 16th in the field.
Even at $7,200 his history here has me fading him in cash, but his current form makes him an intriguing tournament dart.
Driving Distance
The long-hitting Callum Shinkwin brings a 305.1-yard LT DD to the party this week, the fifth-longest average in the field.
Shinkwin is also tied for 16th with a 68.0 percent LT GIR and ranks 20th in LT DA at 63.7 percent, so he sets up well for success at this course. He’s tied with fellow countryman Westwood for the 12th-best LT Bird Avg in the field at 12.8 per tournament.
Shinkwin missed the cut here last year, but he’s in good form with two top-10 finishes in his last four starts. His 69.5 Recent Adj Rd Score is tied for eighth.
Players with comparable LT metrics have traditionally provided a +3.45 Plus/Minus on DraftKings with 55.8 percent Consistency.
The reigning Czech Masters Champion, Pieters holds the 13th-longest LT DD average in the field at 301.2 yards. His 66.7 percent LT GIR ranks only 27th but his 70.9 LT Adj Rd Score is seventh.
Pieters hasn’t missed a cut since May and finished fourth at last week’s Olympic tournament. He is tied with Sullivan atop the field with 10 percent Odds to Win.
Bomb-dropping Dean Burmester boasts a Recent DD of 332.3 yards — extremely long. I assumed it was from a one-count sample, but, no: That’s an average derived from four tournaments. Dude can swing it.
He’s in pretty poor form, as evidenced by his 72.7 Recent Adj Rd Score, but his LT GIR percentage of 70.7 ranks sixth overall. Even more encouraging is his 17.2 LT Adj Bird Avg, which is best in the entire field.
Burmester, although far from safe, makes a fine tournament play this week.
Loudmouth Bonus
If you’re into making multiple stars and scrubs lineups and enjoying a few adult beverages, what better way to enjoy the action than with a Daly roster?
Daly’s 64.2 percent Recent GIR isn’t great, but it’s not terrible either and the same can be said for both his 62.9 percent Recent DA and 295.0-yard Recent DD, accumulated while playing five of the past six weeks.
The chances that Daly is way more interested in partying in Prague than playing golf are pretty high, but he did finish 54th at last month’s Senior Open at Carnoustie.
Good luck!
