My kneejerk reaction for his week was Matthew Fitzpatrick given the way the course sets up and with the considerable Ryder Cup carrot being dangled in front of his nose, I suspect he’ll give this week a thoroughly good go. Pressure can work one of two ways of course and we’ve seen the weight of expectation bear down on the likes of Thorbjorn Olesen and Thomas Pieters in the past fortnight from positions that they’d have been expected to convert, however at around twice the price than that pair started their respective events in recent weeks, I’m willing to take a chance that Matt can handle the pressure and be in a position to convert when he most needs to. The objective for Fitzpatrick is fairly simple from his point of view: he simply must win this week to stand a chance of sneaking that 8th and final automatic spot in Bjorn’s team – if that happens then the only thing that can stop him is a solo 7th place finish or better from Olesen.

Of course what could happen here is that the Sheffield lad falters early on and that could lead to a weekend off, however I suspect he’s made of sterner stuff than that with 4 European Tour titles to his name including the 2016 DP World Tour Championship where he held off the best that the European Tour could offer at that time. The 23 year-old also defends his Omega European Masters title next week which may in a funny way help relieve some of this week’s pressure as we often see as players approach the anniversary of a victory and the additional commitments that it entails.

For me, this layout best suits a generally accurate type who can find form on the putting surfaces and that’s Matt down to a tee. Wins at Woburn and that aforementioned success at Crans are both big ticks in the tree-lined, plotter’s course box and although he’s been successful on more exposed tracks too, I suspect that this kind of layout still plays most to his strengths. In all truth 2018 hasn’t been the best of seasons for Fitzpatrick, however of the more relevant results we see 8th at Wentworth, 12th at the US Open in world-class company and 14th at the Scottish Open in another classy field where he was 2nd heading into the final day. 66 to open at Firestone on a track that doesn’t play greatly to his strengths is positive and he signed off his most recent start on the PGA Tour’s Wyndham Championship with a 65/68 weekend where plenty of putts were dropping. With Olesen needing to defend his position and Pieters likely deflated after blowing last week’s chance, I can see Matt getting into a birdie-making mindset here and giving this event his undivided attention. RESULT: T7

It would have been very easy to drop Matt Wallace after last week’s disappointment in the Czech Republic. Needing to realistically win both last week and this to make any kind of impact on the Ryder Cup team, his chance has now gone bar the unlikeliest of call-ups from Thomas Bjorn, however with the pressure lifted I wouldn’t be remotely surprised to see the Englishman find some of his best golf. A Friday round of 65 in Prague elevated the 28 year-old up to 7th place at the halfway point and going into the weekend it looked like he’d be one of the contenders at the business end of the event, however after an early birdie on Saturday it simply didn’t happen for Matt and he eventually drifted to a tie for 36th. Perhaps there was too much pressure and expectation from himself that held him back when push came to shove, however I don’t think that’s cause for a further drift in his price for this week and given what we’ve learnt about the Hillingdon man in his relatively short career to date, he’s well capable of bouncing back and winning an event of this stature. 9 wins from 69 starts at all levels is a statistic that nobody in this field can get remotely close to and that could have been more had he converted 54-hole leads in China earlier this year and, from a classical, tree-lined perspective, at Monza last autumn at the Italian Open. With no obvious flaws in his game and his putter still running warm, plus with the weight of expectation well and truly lifted from his shoulders, I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see him win this week. RESULT: Winner

Two longer prices to complete my team this week. First up David Horsey who has an excellent record in Denmark and arrives here after a welcome 4-week break. An opening round of 63 in this event in 2015 at the Himmerland track set the Englishman up for what was his 4th and most recent European Tour success and he came close to matching that effort last year, again at Himmerland, when finishing 2nd to an outstanding Julian Suri. Notably both of those efforts came after a few weeks off in the summer where the 33 year-old recharged his batteries and both followed indifferent spells of form immediately prior to that break – MC/MC/66/33 and 75/48/43/MC respectively – so an incoming form line of 27/40/MC/39 and no competitive action since the end of July suddenly doesn’t look all that bad. A relatively short player who’s neat and tidy from tee-to-green and can be excellent on the greens seems like a potent combination for this week and, despite his form line, there have been signs in those performances that his game isn’t a million miles away having ranked 2nd for Driving Accuracy when finishing 40th in Ireland and he topped the putting stats when finishing 39th on his last start in Germany. The Stockport man has bemoaned his lack of consistency of late, however with some good time spent resting and re-focussing his game for the final part of the 2018 season, at the price on offer I’m happy to take the chance that he’ll hit the ground running once again after his summer break in a part of the world that he gets on with very well. RESULT: T56

Other players who interested me at tasty prices included Romain Wattel who showed a bit of form in Germany recently, David Lipsky who tends to react on this type of track and Zander Lombard who backed up a prominent performance at the Open Championship by winning his first professional event on the Sunshine Tour just over a week ago, however if accuracy is going to be an important factor then I see no reason why an in-form Thomas Aikencan’t feature. The South African came within a play-off of winning his 4th European Tour title at the Nordea Masters, producing a birdie on the 72nd hole to take Paul Waring all the way before succumbing at the first extra hole. The 35 year-old didn’t do a great deal wrong though up until that point aside from the odd wobble and his pinpoint accuracy could well get him into the frame here this week. What’s been noticeable with Tommy of late is that he’s putting much better and that always spells danger when coupled with a player who hits a lot of fairways and greens: 1.68 putts per GIR at the Italian Open ranked 14th in the field and he produced his best putting average for over 2 years a few weeks later at the Irish Open, ranking 3rd in the field with 1.66 putts per GIR. Recent putting efforts in Germany and Sweden have also been noteworthy in the context of his overall game and he could well build on his solitary attempt in Denmark back in 2016 which ended up in a tie for 13th. 3 top-10 finishes at Wentworth over the years rubber-stamps his tree-lined credentials and at the price I’ll take a punt on his putter behaving here this week. RESULT: T71