Dan Bradbury held his nerve when we least wanted him to on Sunday at Le Golf National, making par on the 72nd hole with both Thorbjorn Olesen and Yannik Paul sitting a shot shy of his total and denying us from having 2 chances in a play-off. Well done to those of you who picked up the Englishman at healthy 3-figure prices pre-event.
On to this week we go and our final visit of the year to Spain for the Andalucia Masters. As per last year, we’re once again at the Real Club de Golf Sotogrande and not the previous venue Valderrama, although we’re in the same neck of the woods with the new venue just across the A-7 Motorway and a couple of miles closer to the coast than its illustrious predecessor.
Jon Rahm makes his third start in recent weeks on the DP World Tour having lost out in a play-off to Angel Hidalgo at the Spanish Open before finishing 7th at the Dunhill Links, and the former World Number 1 rates as the overwhelming favourite this week at a touch under 3/1 with most bookmakers. Rasmus Hojgaard is generally a 16/1 shot with the likes of Matt Wallace, Thorbjorn Olesen, David Puig and Thriston Lawrence following the leading pair in the betting.
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Course Overview. Having built up a wealth of data at Valderrama over the years from the Andalucia Masters and other events held at that most iconic of venues, that history was sadly resigned to the dustbin last year as Real Club de Golf Sotogrande took the reins for the Andalucia Masters in what proved to be an altogether different test.
At 7,101 yards for its par of 72, this Robert Trent Jones design isn’t long by modern day standards and instead uses proximity to the coast and a more exposed style as its main defence. Fairways are wide with pine, cork oaks, eucalyptus and giant palm trees dotted around the perimeters. Greens are elevated, placing an emphasis on quality approach play, and fairways and putting surfaces are well bunkered throughout.
Water is in play on a number of holes by virtue of the man-made lakes that litter the course, however with 4 attackable par 5s and a couple of short par 4s, this course isn’t anything like the test that Valderrama has presented over the years in anything but the most brutal of conditions.
A 2015 renovation returned this course close to Trent Jones’s original design with the greens reduced back in size and the surfaces re-laid with A4 Bentgrass, and for those finding the right parts of greens in the requisite number, birdies and eagles should be forthcoming this week.
Tournament Stats. We’ve published some key statistics for this week’s event that will help to shape a view on players who traditionally play well at this event.
Predictor Model. Our published Predictor Model is available here. As always you can build your own model using the variables available.
Events Winners. 2023: Adrian Meronk, 18/1; 2022: Adrian Otaegui, 60/1; 2021: Matt Fitzpatrick, 14/1; 2020: John Catlin, 125/1; 2019: Christiaan Bezuidenhout, 80/1; 2018: Sergio Garcia, 9/2; 2017: Sergio Garcia, 5/1.
Weather Forecast. The latest weather forecast for the area is here.
Pre-event rain will have cleared by the time the tournament starts, leaving us with 4 clear and sunny days with temperatures reaching the mid-70s Fahrenheit in the afternoons. Wind will be moderate at up to 15 mph which will offer the course a little protection, although with relatively soft conditions underfoot – at least to start with – how much protection remains to be seen.
Tournament Trends & Key Factors. The traditional stats of our top 5 finishers here last year are as follows:
1st, Adrian Meronk (-16). 305 yards (11th), 50% fairways (54th), 72.2% greens in regulation (23rd), 50% scrambling (51st), 1.60 putts per GIR (1st)
2nd, Matti Schmid (-15). 310 yards (4th), 66.1% fairways (10th), 70.8% greens in regulation (29th), 66.7% scrambling (21st), 1.66 putts per GIR (4th)
3rd, Richard Mansell (-14). 310 yards (5th), 62.5% fairways (13th), 73.6% greens in regulation (18th), 78.9% scrambling (3rd), 1.77 putts per GIR (34th)
4th, Louis de Jager (-13). 305 yards (12th), 55.4% fairways (38th), 80.5% greens in regulation (2nd), 57.1% scrambling (46th), 1.72 putts per GIR (16th)
4th, Chase Hanna (-13). 301 yards (17th), 50% fairways (54th), 76.4% greens in regulation (8th), 58.8% scrambling (42nd), 1.73 putts per GIR (18th)
Each of the top 5 finishers were inside the top 17 for driving distance on the week, so it would seem that a little power from off the tee is no bad attribute. There wasn’t a massive variance in GIR stats across the field and scrambling was generally quite high too, meaning that taking birdie chances when presented was the most critical factor with Meronk leading the field for putts once on board the green.
From a Strokes Gained perspective, the same top 5 finishers fared as follows:
Key: T: SG Off the Tee; A; SG Approach; T2G: SG Tee to Green; ATG: SG Around the Green; P: SG Putting.
There wasn’t a great deal of consistency last year in terms of Strokes Gained with Meronk and Hanna excelling on the greens, whereas the other three players gained most of their strokes from Tee to Green. In short, it looks like a variety of styles could produce the winner here.
Incoming Form: Looking at the recent form of the Andalucia Masters winners and the overriding trend is that all players had been in pretty good nick.
This includes last year’s winner Adrian Meronk who’d won the Italian Open earlier in the year and had recorded a couple of top-5 finishes since that point. A missed cut at the weather-reduced Dunhill Links halted a run of 5 straight cuts made before he won here at 18/1.
The same goes for 2022 winner Adrian Otaegui who despite also missing the cut at the Dunhill Links had previously been on a run of 7 straight weekends made after his brief foray to LIV golf, included in which was 3rd place finish at the Hero Open.
2021 winner Matt Fitzpatrick had lost a play-off at the Scottish Open and improved through the week on his last start at Wentworth to finish 20th, so wasn’t in bad shape The same applies to John Catlin who, despite being a 125/1 chance, had finished 8th in Austria and 6th in Wales before closing with a round of 68 the week before his victory here in 2020 for some good momentum.
Bezuidenhout has finished 3rd on his last outing in 2019, whereas Garcia had finished 7th the week before his successful defence the previous autumn, included in which was a closing round of 65 to suggest he was rounding into form.
The previous year Sergio had finished 12th and 10th at the final two FedEx Cup PlayOff events on the PGA Tour before returning to Europe and his effort in Italy the week before winning here had shown some promise as he sat 6th going into the weekend. The others all had contending performances to their names in recent weeks too as the stats below confirm:
Adrian Meronk: 5/MC/MC/3/15/MC/23/62/13/23/28/MC
Adrian Otaegui: 18/7/58/21/42/29/3/44/13/25/13/MC
Matt Fitzpatrick: 4/MC/23/MC/10/55/2/26/57/MC/MC/20
Event Form: A bit of a mixed bag here in terms of event form with John Catlin and Matt Fitzpatrick having missed the cut on their previous attempts, Arian Otaegui, Christiaan Bezuidenhout and Adrian Meronk having middling records, and Sergio Garcia having an incredible record in this.
Of course results prior to last year’s win for Meronk refer to Valderrama though so what relevance they have to this week, if any, remains to be seen:
Adrian Meronk: MC/25/45
Adrian Otaegui: 12/MC/17/58
Matt Fitzpatrick: MC
John Catlin: MC
Christiaan Bezuidenhout: 29
Sergio Garcia: 10/1/1
Sergio Garcia: 10/1
With relatively soft turf conditions and sunny skies, I’m expecting scoring to be a little lower this year compared to last despite a moderate breeze being forecast. Scoring heavily on the Par-5s could prove to be key alongside making enough birdies on these Bentgrass greens when opportunities arise.
Opposing Jon Rahm each time he tees it up on the DP World Tour feels increasingly like a game of Russian Roulette, but with none of the bookmakers daring to go beyond 3/1 this week he’s so short that he has to be taken on in my view.
It was a fellow Spaniard in the shape of Angel Hidalgo who stared down the former OWGR number 1 and 2-time Major winner at the Spanish Open last month and maybe it will be another of his compatriots who spoils the party for Rahm this week in the shape of David Puig.
With only last year’s event to go on in terms of course history, Puig will be at far less of a disadvantage this week than he was when finishing 4th at the Dunhill Links on debut on his last start against a whole host of more experienced opponents. 3rd at the Spanish Open prior to that was also impressive as the only other time he’d played Club de Campo professionally was 3 years prior as a fresh-faced 19 year-old. The playing field is far more level this week and that makes David very dangerous in my view.
Stats are limited about the 22 year-old given that he’s played the majority of his professional golf over on the LIV Tour, however what we can glean from the traditional statistics is that he’s a long hitter who putts well and that looks like a potent combination here given the numbers produced from our winner Adrian Meronk and some of his closest competitors here last year.
1st for SG Off the Tee in Madrid last month was complimented by 10th for SG Tee to Green and 14th for SG Putting, a trio of stats that could easily describe our winner here this week should they be repeated, and of those closest to Rahm in the betting he’s the one I fancy most to give our favourite a scare.
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Johannes Veerman 1pt EW 80/1 (6EW, 1/5) with SpreadEx
It’s been an up-and-down year for Johannes Veerman, although one with enough ups to put the American inside the top 50 on the Race to Dubai and in with a great chance of making it all the way through to the Earth Course next month for what would be just the second time in his career.
2nd at the Indian Open is the 32 year-old’s best result of 2024 thus far, with top 10s at the China Open, European Open, KLM Open and ISCO Championship before last week’s 8th place finish in Paris. 4 Missed Cuts preceded his visit to France though and that looked like it would be 5 after finding the water on off the tee on the 18th at the end of his second round when sitting precariously just ahead of the cut line. Up and down from the bunker from 26 yards saved his bogey and from there nobody in the field bettered his 63/67 over the weekend to push him all the way onto the first page of the leaderboard by the Sunday close.
Momentum then coming into this week for a player who’s won once on the DP World Tour at the 2021 Czech Masters and undoubtedly has the talent to win more at this level.
An opening round of 77 here 12 months ago wasn’t the ideal start to his tournament; to his credit Veerman rallied from there to shoot 67 on the Friday and miss the cut by just one stroke so there’s enough of a hint that he can play the course. If he can continue where he left off last week then he can hopefully put himself in a much better position to attack the weekend 12 months on.
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Brandon Stone 1pt EW 100/1 (6EW, 1/5) with SpreadEx
Another player who fits the bill for me who’s making his course debut this week is Brandon Stone.
At 80th in the Race to Dubai the South African has a live chance of making it to Abu Dhabi if he can back up last week’s 10th place finish at Le Golf National with a strong performance here, and having always struggled at Valderrama this latest venue for the Andalucia Masters should suit much better.
33rd on Tour for Driving Distance for the season at a touch under 307 yards average, Stone is in the same kind of ball-park in terms of power as our top 5 finishers here last season, with the added bonus that he hits an awful lot of greens in regulation – enough in fact to put him in 4th place for the season on that count.
What really caught the eye though was his performance last week, not least in that his closing round of 64 tied the best effort on the day – despite two bogeys – as he scythed his way through the field.
That closing round was impressive, however for a player who sits well outside the top 100 for both SG Putting and Putts per GIR, his flat stick performance ultimately gets him the nod here this week. 7th for SG Putting on the week saw the 31 year-old gain over 5 strokes on the greens over the four days. In old money that translated to 1.67 putts per GIR and he should be coming into this week with confidence coursing through his veins if he can keep the putter warm.
In a week where Par-5 Scoring is likely to be key, his 9-under total last week in Paris on the long holes was beaten by just one other player on the week and he could threaten a fourth DP World Tour win this week after a winless gap at this level of just over 6 years.
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Daniel Hillier 1pt EW 110/1 (6EW, 1/5) with Betfred
I backed Daniel Hillier here 12 months ago and with the Kiwi sitting in 4th heading into the weekend I was hopeful of a big result, however that was quickly derailed with a Saturday 75 and he finished in a tie for 19th overall. Disappointing undoubtedly, however there was also enough aptitude for this course on display for me to have another try this year.
22nd on Tour for the season for Driving Distance ticks the power box for me and that aggression sets him up to gain more strokes from Off the Tee than any other aspect of his game, an area that I think will be important this week after pre-event rain softens to the turf here in Andalucia.
Winner of last year’s British Masters at The Belfry, the 26 year-old’s only other top-10 finish since that point in time came on Spanish soil at the Open de Espana, bolstering a record in the country that includes a win at the 2021 Challenge Costa Brava and two further top-10 finishes on the Challenge Tour before he graduated to the top level.
A solid if unspectacular season sees Daniel sitting in 98th place in the Race to Dubai and currently outside the qualifying mark for both Abu Dhabi and Dubai as things stand, so if he is going to make it to the inaugural DP World Tour PlayOffs then he’ll need a good week here or in South Korea in a week’s time, no exceptions.
18th at the BMW PGA Championship was positive given he recorded weekend rounds of 67/68 to garner a decent enough finish after a more pedestrian start, and 25th last time out at the Dunhill Links saw him in 3rd place after 18 holes and 5th after 36 before ultimately making 7 at the Road Hole on Sunday to drop from a likely top 10 finish. My feeling is that he’s playing better than his results suggest and he could feature here at a healthy price.
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Simon Forsstrom 0.5pt EW 300/1 (8EW, 1/5) with Betfred
Finally I’ll close with a speculative punt on Simon Forsstrom who found some form last week in France and could build on that at a huge price.
14 Missed Cuts from 21 starts this season explains why the bookmakers are still dangling a big number about the Swede this week after finishing in a tie for 10th at Le Golf National, however he proved last year at the Soudal Open that he’s a player capable of winning at this level and perhaps he’ll push on this week.
That win in Belgium last year followed a flash of form the week before in Italy after a 6 week break, finishing 32nd whilst recording top-15 Strokes Gained ranks from Off the Tee and with the putter. Last week’s effort followed 5 straight Missed Cuts, however 5th for both SG Off the Tee and Tee to Green – plus 11th for Driving Accuracy and 8th for GIR in old money – suggests to me that something has clicked and he might just be able to ride that positivity for another week here.
A missed cut here last year came in a stretch where he hadn’t finished inside the top 40 in his previous 8 starts and I’m happy to overlook that; instead 5 top-10 finishes on Spanish soil at lower levels over the years suggests a level of comfort over here and perhaps he can surprise a few and sneak an each-way place.
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