Fantasy Golf Tournament Preview- Hero Open (European Tour-Pro Package members)

OVERVIEW

This week we get a new event on the European Tour. Not only is it new, but it’s been rebranded as well. The previous name of this event was the English Open and was last played in 2002 (won by Darren Clarke who happened to be a 3-time winner of this event). The Arden course is one of two at the Hotel & Country Club is a parkland style course which requires strategy instead of bomb & gouge. The front 9 is shorter than the back, but the back 9 is a bit more open which should allow those who can, to bomb it. In the end, this is a resort course so the fairways are generous, and the rough may be a bit thicker than usual but shouldn’t be of huge concern. There are four Par 5’s measuring between 515 & 540 yards and are vital to scoring well at Arden. As usual, hitting greens in regulation seems to be the all-important stat to target this week in finding a winner (or finding 6 players who crack the Top 20). With former winners being Darren Clarke, Thomas Bjorn and Colin Montgomerie, I think it’s fair to say good “Open players” should tend to do well here. The problem with that is this field doesn’t contain many who have had their fair crack at the Open Championships. I’ve read there’s some comparisons to Diamond Country Club (Austrian Open) in the green complexes, but again, the player pool who played there and here is minimal (Joost and a few others) so we’ll primarily target strong ball strikers and hope their putters show up.

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