The Bullseye – Open de Espana

For this week’s European Tour preview, we head to Madrid, Spain for the Open de Espana. This event was left off the schedule in 2017 while finding a new (old) home, but returns to the Centro Nacionald de Golf in the heart of the city. This is a cool-looking course from the pictures I’ve seen, and should make for some great golf.

This course was used in the past, but most of the players in the field haven’t played here before. The venue is a typical par-72 layout, but features four very short par-5s. This will inevitably yield plenty of birdies and eagles, and I do expect low scores. The one variable to consider this week is weather, as winds and cold temperatures should have a major impact on play. Players and Tour officials have been tweeting videos and photos of the layers and layers of clothing players have been wearing all week. Usually when weather is an issue, I play lighter volume on the week. I’ll also tend to favor more accurate, veteran players and steer away from the volatile young guns. This week is no exception.

The field isn’t great this week, but there are enough big names in the field to draw some interest. Jon Rahm, Rafa Cabrera-Bello, and Pablo Larrazabal are the top Spanish hopes, while Andrew Johnston, Eddie Pepperell, and Matt Wallace headline the British contingent. It feels like a week where one of the young guys could break through, and I’ll highlight some of those names below.

This is the first European Tour event where we’ve had reliable stats (albeit small sample sizes), so that adds another element to our edge. Unfortunately, this is a new course for most players, so it may be difficult to predict what skills are most important. In any event, let’s revert back to our default: strokes gained approach and strokes gained off-the-tee.

• Strokes Gained Approach
• Strokes Gained Off-the-Tee
• Greens in Regulation
• Birdie Average

 
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