The Bullseye – Trophee Hassan II

For this week’s European Tour preview, we head to Morocco for the Trophee Hassan II. The European Tour is getting back into full swing after a light schedule while its top players were playing WGCs and the Masters overseas. Last week, Jon Rahm won his national open (to no surprise), and we saw again just how dominant he can be. World #1 is getting closer and closer for him.

This week is one of the most interesting tournaments and venues on the Tour. We have some a strong field that is headlined by defending champion Edoardo Molinari, Paul Dunne, Pablo Larrazabal, Jeung-Hun Wang, Joost Luiten, Eddie Pepperrell, Jordan Smith, and Andy Sullivan. This event moved back to Royal Golf Dar Es Salam two years ago, but recent changes have made it extremely challenging. It has been lengthened to over 7,600 yards, and will play as a par-73. I’m going to give a small bump to bombers just based on the scorecard, but last year’s leaderboard was littered with shorter, more accurate ball-strikers. The course is set in a forest, so accuracy off-the-tee is important this week. We don’t have much course history or statistics to draw upon at this venue, so just glance back at previous leaderboards and pick the best players in the best form heading into this week. Scores were not low at this venue last year, so finishing position points will be crucial this week on DraftKings.

This is one of the first European Tour events 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 Off-the-Tee
• Strokes Gained Putting
• Greens in Regulation
• Birdie Average

And now on to the picks!

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