European Tour Fantasy Golf Picks and Predictions for the Volvo China Open
The Volvo China Open Fantasy Preview
The second leg of the European Tour’s China swing takes place this week on the back of an excellent tournament at Shenzhen last time out. There two of the very best players in the field duked out a playoff hole, with the classy Bernd Wiesberger seeing off our pick Tommy Fleetwood to claim a fourth tour title and his first in nearly two years.
The Austrian appears destined for better things and a tilt at the PGA TOUR beckons for this smooth operator. Just look at the composure he showed in the playoff: his tee shot landed a matter of inches from the water hazard, and yet he dug out a superb iron shot, nailed a knee-knocker of a putt, and claimed the title. It was only the third birdie made on the eighteenth hole throughout the whole of the fourth round!
Wiesberger is hanging around for this, the Volvo China Open at the Topwin Golf and Country Club in Beijing. And why wouldn’t he, because this is a gorgeous place to play your golf. Designed by Ian Woosnam and opened as recently as 2011, it really is a stunning course of beautiful parkland and incredible wildlife, and once the early morning mist lifts views of the Great Wall of China are available.
Measuring 7,261 yards for its Par 72, this stretch features undulating Paspalum greens and plenty of trees and water hazards for players to navigate around.
What a story the 2016 edition of this event was. Held at Topwin for the very first time, the home supporters had a second consecutive winner to cheer home as Haotong Li overcame a two-shot deficit on the Sunday to reel in Felipe Aguilar and Lucas Bjerregaard with a bogey-free 64. He followed compatriot Ashun Wu in taking down his home tournament.
This week it may well be the case that Wiesberger is the man to beat again as long as he doesn’t suffer from the infamous ‘champion effect’ which generally brings previous winners to their knees a week later. He will be joined by a whole bunch of players who contended in Shenzhen, including Ross Fisher, Joost Luiten, Alex Levy, George Coetzee, Fabrizio Zanotti, and plenty more. It isn’t a top tier European Tour event by any means, but there is enough to whet the appetite for another pulsating four days of action in China.
This part of the European Tour is unique in that we have back-to-back events where the previous week’s performances are so relevant. Topwin and Genzon, the Shenzhen International host course, are similar in character and an approximate yardage, and clearly the weather conditions are going to be fairly similar too.
So is form at Shenzhen a prerequisite for success at the China Open? Here are the first ten home at Shenzhen in 2016 and where they subsequently finished at Topwin:
- 1: Soomin Lee – MC
- T2: Joost Luiten – T44
- T2: Brandon Stone – Did Not Play
- T4: Scott Hend – T6
- T4: Lee Slattery – T34
- 7: Bradley Dredge – T15
- T8: Nacho Elvira – MC
- T8: Rikard Karlberg – T21
- T8: Thorbjorn Olesen – T15
- T8: Bubba Watson – Did Not Play
As you can see two high performers at Genzon subsequently missed the cut at Topwin (Soomin Lee’s MC was perhaps understandable given he won his first Tour title a week earlier), and four of the remaining six finished top-25 – with three going top-20 and Scott Hend connecting top tens. In conclusion, we would say there is a link of sorts, with 3/8 players following their top 10 at Shenzhen with a top 20 at Topwin, and in 2015 – albeit on a different course to Topwin – six of the top ten in the China Open had finished in the top 25 of the Shenzhen.
What else do you need to know? Well, expect a birdie fest if conditions suit. Li won here in -22 a year ago, with 38 players in double digits under par and the cut line at -3! The Chinaman played the Par 3s in -1, the Par 4s in -16 and the Par 5s in -5, so doing the simple things well is the key!
The European Tour didn’t collect stats from Li’s winning effort, but for second-placed Felipe Aguilar we find that the Chilean ranked 11th for Driving Accuracy (five of the first eleven players home ranked top-20 for this metric), fifth for Greens in Reg (6/11) ,and 32nd for Putts per Round (6/11).
So, with all of the above in mind, who are we taking in our DFS drafts this week? Let’s run through the price tiers…
Our Volvo China Open Fantasy Picks and Predictions
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