Fantasy Golf Tournament Preview- Saudi International (Euro Tour- Pro Pack Members)

OVERVIEW

The final leg of the “Desert Swing” is this week as some big names from the PGA Tour take that oil money and head overseas for a quick cash-grab in King Abdullah Economic City. I have plenty to say on the subject, but that’s probably not for print. Speaking of the field, for those watching, we’ll get to see World #1 (DJ), #7 (Hatton), #8 (Bryson), #10 (Reed), #12 (Hovland), #15 (Finau) and a handful of other great young (and older) golfers. One could argue this field might even be stronger than that of the Waste Management Open this week. The event is in it’s third year of existence and has produced two completely different types of winners (though DJ is the one constant having finished 2nd to GMAC last year after winning the event in its debut). Last year’s event was a lower scoring affair, but I’d expect scoring to be somewhere in between what we’ve seen for two years now and will go on record saying -16 gets it done this week.
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 TOURNAMENT BACKGROUND

• The Course
• Royal Greens Golf & Country Club
• Par: 70
• Yardage: 7,010 yards
• Greens: Paspalum
• Location: Saudi Arabia (KAEC – King Abdullah Economic City)
• Past Champions:
• 2020: Graeme McDowell -12 over Dustin Johnson
• 2019: Dustin Johnson -19 over Haotong Li

 

KEY STATS TO TARGET

• Strong Emphasis – SG: OTT + SG: APP, Birdies or better
• Important – Par 4 Scoring, Par 5 Scoring, Scrambling

 

The Course

Royal Greens is typically a Par 72 measuring just over 7,000 yards. For this week’s tournament play the European Tour changed two of the Par 5’s into Par 4’s (keeping the 4^th & 18^th holes as Par 5’s) meaning these two are the only shots the players will have at basically a 60% birdie opportunity before teeing up the ball. The course is considered a coastal course (which explains the GMAC correlation), it’s built around four lakes and having some holes run alongside the Red Sea. There are some holes that dog-leg which brings a bit more strategy off the tee as opposed to that of last week or the week prior in Abu Dhabi where you can let it rip and play the hole in front of you. With most coastal courses, the main deterrent in low scores is the wind. According to local weather at the time of writing we’re to expect wind gusts up to 20 mph on Thursday. Of course, make sure you look at the weather forecast prior to lineup lock to confirm if there have been any changes.

 

Layout / Fairways / Greens

The course is primarily Paspalum grass throughout, which means a ball in the fairway gives the players a bit more of the ball to clip crisp approach shots into the undulating greens. The bunkering around the course is primarily near the greens, so there isn’t much concern off the tee with the exception of making sure your ball doesn’t test its floatability in the Red Sea or the lakes. There are a couple holes where the fairways get narrow, but I presume most of the field will be clubbing down to keep it in play, and since this course isn’t very long I’d expect those who don’t club down to pound it out to a point where they’re either relying on the bounce into the fairway or not very concerned about the short rough. Remember, this is an event where they’re paying PGA Tour pros to play year after year, they’re not going to set it up very hard as that would be a deterrent in seeing future stacked fields. The greens are also made up of Paspalum, which tends to run a bit slower than bermuda grass greens. There’s some undulation in the complexes themselves, but there are also clear positions to either hit to or miss to when a flag is positioned in a specific area. IE – 18^th hole, pin set back left, there’s a lull before the very back tier where I could see many players playing to coming up the 18^th hole.

 

 

STARS

Dustin Johnson ($11,600): Tough not to like DJ whose record here shows 2^nd – Win. His play at Kapalua wasn’t terrible either where he ended up finishing 11^th (while losing almost a stroke off the tee and almost 2.5 strokes putting). We know what DJ does well, and for the most part he’s a good putter, which is something that can’t hinder him this week, or he won’t pay off this hefty price tag.

Bryson Dechambeau ($11,200): Last week we saw the PGA Tour’s favorite heel win, and it would be fitting to see the second coming win this week in a field that features said heel. Bryson’s play at Kapalua wasn’t exactly what I thought it would be, though he did finish 7^th. He gained 6.2 strokes from tee to green, but lost on approach, scrambling and putting – something he usually doesn’t do (the putting part anyways). He has the off the tee game to really do some damage this week, so as long as he’s hitting greens, I really like his chances at winning.

 

VALUE PLAYS

Tommy Fleetwood ($9,700): Tommy’s not really a value play in the normal sense, but in this field I think he’s a bit of a value in his price compared to those around him in that he certainly has the ability to win even against those in this field. He’s a first timer here, so I wouldn’t consider him a core play, but his last two events show he has plenty of form in the desert (17^th – 7^th) and should have plenty of our peers selecting those around him with better form (Finau for example).  

 

Thomas Pieters ($8,300): I hate to write up a guy who I think will be chalky, but Pieters has been playing much better to start this season than he did after the restart. A lot of that has to do with his wrist injury, which he looks to be all healed up from. He finished T3 here last year and T22 the year prior so there’s obviously a course fit. I think another finish inside the Top 10 seems like a realistic projection for him this week.

 

Thomas Detry ($7,700): Detry, like his fellow countryman Pieters, has had a good history here finishing T6 & T42 and comes in off a T9 last week. His off the tee game is the highlight for me along with the fact that I have high hopes for a breakout from him this year and having played some events on Paspalum courses should give him the experience needed to know what needs to be done in order to take down a field with this type of strength.

 

Others to consider by price

High-end ($10k+): Tyrrell Hatton $10,500, Viktor Hovland $10,300

Mid-range ($9.9k – $9k): Tony Finau $9,900, Abraham Ancer $9,500, Sergio Garcia $9,300, Christiaan Bezuidenhout $9,100

Value ($8.9k – $8.1k): Robert MacIntyre $8,900, Shane Lowry $8,700, Adri Arnaus $8,100

Value Tier 2 ($8k – $7.2k): Rasmus Hojgaard $7,900, Ian Poulter $7,600, Victor Perez $7,700, Laurie Canter $7,500, Antoine Rozner $7,500

Punts (<$7.2k): Aaron Rai $7,200, Ryan Fox $7,000, Fabrizio Zanotti $6,900, Haotong Li $6,900, Victor Dubuisson $6,900

 

Thanks for reading and good luck this week from the FGI team!

 

• Pari, (@hitthehighdraw)