Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen can take the next step up the ladder in this week’s European Open according to golf expert Ben Coley.
Golf betting tips: European Open
2pts e.w. Bernd Wiesberger at 28/1 (bet365 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
1.5pts e.w. Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen at 40/1 (Betway 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7)
1.5pts e.w. Frederic Lacroix at 40/1 (Betfred 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
1.5pt e.w. Johannes Veerman at 40/1 (Coral, Ladbrokes 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7)
1pt e.w. Freddy Schott at 150/1 (Coral, Ladbrokes 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7)
0.5pt e.w. Max Rottluff at 225/1 (Betfred, BoyleSports 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
You didn’t ask, but Green Eagle is probably my least favourite golf course on the DP World Tour, yet I suspect that for some it ranks among the very best. Quite understandably, many are less concerned with the how than they are with the how many. This place is seriously demanding and if your preferences begin and end with par being a good score, then no wonder it appeals.
To me, it represents the artificial rather than artifice. Green Eagle is hard simply because it’s hard: proudly long holes, hazards, a general sense of the unrelenting. It’s slow, too, and the cadence created by the routing is problematic. The final four holes here feature three par-fives and lots of and lots of water. Players will be made to wait and just as the event ought to build towards a crescendo, everything about this place slows it down.
None of this means we can’t or won’t be entertained or witness something special and last year, Tom McKibbin satisfied both. His approach from behind a tree at the 18th hole, whether bold or reckless, was fitting for one so talented. Just like the player in whose footsteps he treads, Rory McIlroy, McKibbin seemed destined to make an explosive entrance and that’s exactly what he did.
For a long time, I’ve felt players like him are ideal for this course; that you need to be a heavy hitter because of the sheer length, which can stretch beyond 7,800 yards. I was perhaps wrong to miss the nuance: yes, longer drivers now have six (!) par-fives to go at including one which is listed as 705 yards, but they’re the hardest set on the DP World Tour, very difficult to hit in two. This is a course so long that it might actually restore balance, because wedges are third shots rather than second.
And when you think about it, the thing that ties McKibbin and 2017 winner Jordan Smith together is that for players who get it out there plenty far enough, they’re extraordinarily accurate. Smith is the most reliable ball-striker on the DP World Tour if we use old-world stats like fairways and greens. McKibbin, wiry and fast and a pound-for-pound powerhouse who is longer than Smith, is among the top 10 on the circuit in driving accuracy, despite being among the top 20 in driving distance.
With Paul Casey and, to a lesser extent, Marcus Armitage both considered old-fashioned flushers, the former another whose driving prowess isn’t all to do with his biceps, and with fairway-finders like Max Kieffer, Marcel Siem, Darius van Driel and Edoardo Molinari all having gone close since short-hitting Richard McEvoy won here in 2018, it’s time to worry less about reaching the par-fives in two, and more about reaching them dry.
This course has the potential to ruin just about anything, including McKibbin’s first title defence. The fact that five of the six winners here were doing so for the first time at European Tour level isn’t necessarily instructive, but it probably does relate somewhat to Green Eagle’s inherent volatility. So does the fact that four of those five were sent off at big prices, including the potential superstar who almost heads the betting.
McKibbin has it all and will likely win again before he graduates to the PGA Tour, but there will be opportunities to back him when we don’t have to take onboard the unknown of defending or the concern that he hasn’t played tournament golf since China, so I’ll take another brilliant youngster at around double the price – RASMUS NEERGAARD-PETERSEN.
We don’t know quite so much about the Dane, who is less than a year into his professional career, and he’s not easy to rate accurately. What we do know, however, is that he’s the best player on the Challenge Tour and he arrives here in excellent form, with five top-10s on the spin including two wins.
That means Neergaard-Petersen is playing for a DP World Tour card wherever he tees it up now, whether at Challenge Tour level or this one, as he’ll achieve battlefield promotion via the latter if landing a hat-trick. How he deals with that time will tell, but he had a first go at it last week in his native Denmark, where he defied a slow start to finish seventh.
Bossing the par-fives there, he demonstrated once more that he’s at the top of his game and while this is a step up the ladder, this very event provides precedent – veteran Richard McEvoy held off Bryson DeChambeau here in 2018, a week after he’d won at a lower level in France.
How wide the gap is depends on the player and Neergaard-Petersen has already shown he can compete with the best in Europe, having finished seventh on his DP World Tour debut at last summer’s BMW International Open, here in Germany, just a fortnight after making the switch from the amateur ranks.
He went on to be 11th in the German Challenge a month later, and closer inspection perhaps reveals why he loves coming back to Germany. Neergaard-Petersen won the German International Amateur in 2018 and defended that title in 2019, while before all this he also contended for the German Boys’ title at St Leon-Rot.
Just what that is worth in the here and now is another difficult question to answer, but I like the fact he considers himself a ‘really, really good iron player’ with this week’s task in mind, and I believe he’s already of a level of ability which entitles him to be a bit shorter than he is in the betting. The best Challenge Tour players have often taken this sort of rise in grade in their stride and he can do the same.
Long-game can take Wiesberger far
It should go without saying that avoiding mistakes will be key to winning this tournament. McKibbin led the field, Kalle Samooja led the field, and Armitage was among the top five. It’s just not really possible to make enough birdies and eagles to overcome four or five bogeys per round which otherwise would be a decent return at a course this severe, with the champion likely to average between two and three.
The first four in the 2024 bogey avoidance statistics right now are BERND WIESBERGER, Smith, McKibbin and Laurie Canter and along with Richard Mansell, himself 16th, all of these noted ball-strikers make sense. The difficulty is in establishing which will manage to avoid putting themselves into mid-table obscurity and where Wiesberger is concerned, that’s precisely what happened in Belgium, as it has all year long.
He’s still my pick of the bunch ahead of Mansell and McKibbin and though he was stone last in putting at the Soudal Open, there were some better signs during Sunday’s 66, his joint-lowest round of the year so far. Yes, his sole bogey was a three-putt from no distance at all, but that was the only blemish and he gained strokes on the field despite one birdie, from just off the green, not officially counting towards that.
Some will not be prepared to accept excuses for his putting woes, which are not new, but Wiesberger did also produce his best driving and iron play numbers of the season. In finishing 24th, he again demonstrated that to win at this level he doesn’t need to make a great deal, just not shoot himself in the foot as he has done at times during this comeback campaign.
Around Green Eagle, where he was fifth in a much stronger field when putting poorly in 2019, thanks to a world-class tee-to-green display, I can accept the putting part of the deal. Kieffer and Siem both lost strokes last year yet tied for second, Samooja lost strokes yet won, and if Wiesberger hits it as he did at Rinkven he’ll be much closer to the leaders this time.
Antoine Rozner is always of interest when he drifts towards 50/1 but he’s been down the field in two previous visits and preference is for his compatriot FREDERIC LACROIX.
At 12th in strokes-gained off-the-tee and 19th in approach play, this progressive young Frenchman is a fine ball-striker in his own right and he’s showing signs of improvement with his short-game, too. Last week he ranked 29th in putting and he’d been seventh when finishing 13th in China before that.
Accurate off the tee, he’s another who tends to limit the mistakes and it was this long-game solidity which helped him to fifth place here at Green Eagle last year, when his form wasn’t a patch on what it has been lately.
Back in 2022 he missed the cut but still caught the eye with his ball-striking numbers, at a time when he’d missed five cuts in seven and had no top-20 finishes to his name, so it appears as though Green Eagle sets up as nicely for him as you would expect it to.
A regular contender either side of Christmas, Lacroix can be forgiven a generally quieter spring given that it was his first trip to Singapore, likewise Japan, whereas his better efforts lately have come at more familiar stops including when improving on his previous start at DLF in India.
Last week’s share of 34th was perfectly decent even if he faded a little at the weekend, and this sterner test might suit better. He looks about as solid as it gets and while such profiles can mean less around a course like Green Eagle, where anything can go wrong, I do like his chances.
Don’t Veer far from American
JOHANNES VEERMAN looks capable of doubling his DP World Tour tally soon and having secured his first win on a big golf course in Prague, where last year’s runner-up Kieffer went on to succeed him, it could happen this week.
That course could offer some clues but the best guide to this one might be Marco Simone, where Veerman was eighth on debut. The Ryder Cup venue isn’t as difficult but has some similarities and there are too many leaderboard crossovers to ignore, including Samooja, Armitage, Kieffer, Siem, Alex Bjork, Edoardo Molinari, Victor Perez, Julien Guerrier, and a few more besides.
Veerman ticks that box and he’s made all four cuts at Green Eagle, including when 10th here in 2022. At the time he arrived in poor form but regardless of the state of his game, he’s been able to safely navigate his way around a course which can justifiably label itself the toughest in Europe.
Right now, the American is 11th in bogey avoidance and I love the fact that he’s started to hit more and more greens. Always a capable putter, things look to be coming together nicely for one who was expected to kick on when he captured that maiden title in 2021 but has taken a little while to rediscover that kind of level.
With his best form elsewhere including top-10s in India, at Leopard Creek, Valderrama and Mount Juliet, Veerman is good under difficult conditions and he seems in a really good place generally. At 40/1 generally and perhaps a little bigger in places, he could work his way into the mix following a promising debut at Rinkven, a course which wouldn’t leap off the page as an ideal one for his skill set.
Despite that, Veerman finished mid-pack with a cool putter. At 22nd this year and consistently above-average during his time on the DP World Tour, he can soon put that right.
Home fancies preferred to popular Thai
Perhaps the one I’ve toyed with most is Kiradech Aphibarnrat, now out to 66/1 following a missed cut at the Soudal Open. The Thai hit it really well last week and holed plenty, too, but the odd poor chip shot cost him a couple more rounds at the weekend.
That suggests he’s probably playing just as well as he was when almost winning for us in Singapore and having been 33/1 as a late alternate in China a couple of starts ago, the doubling of his price makes him tempting. Aphibarnrat, who is far more accurate than his swing may lead you to believe, was in the mix here on debut and has a good record in Germany overall.
He should be considered at 66/1 but at a bigger price I’ll opt for FREDDY SCHOTT, a serious young talent who can be the latest to contend on home soil and rates value at 100s or bigger.
That’s something Bernd Ritthammer did in the first renewal of this to be played at Green Eagle, it’s something Allen John did at enormous odds a year later, and it’s something both Kieffer and Siem did last year when just finding one too good in the shape of McKibbin.
Schott was 14th himself and given that he’d played a dozen events with nothing better than 40th (achieved at Marco Simone, by the way), that’s a performance we can upgrade. So too is his share of 51st in 2022 as he’d been off for six weeks, was in-and-out on the Challenge Tour at the time, and still impressed with his long-game.
We are talking about a genuine powerhouse here and while I’ve cooled on the idea that such players have to be the answer given the sheer size of the course, Schott has now played in the event three times, driving it well throughout, and over the last two impressing as well with his approach play.
He is undoubtedly a better player now and having won Qualifying School back in November, three of his most recent six starts have resulted in top-20 finishes, including in a 54-hole China Open where his putter kept him from being right there in the mix in a similar field to this one.
It’s not difficult to forgive him a poor effort in Belgium, where he’d also missed the cut last year, and I won’t be at all surprised if Schott bounces back to the form he showed on his previous start now back on home soil, playing a course we know he likes.
Jayden Schaper and Brandon Stone are both respected, the latter’s short-game seemingly fixed after several years of trying, while there are a couple of Spaniards looking to emulate Nacho Elvira, among whom Angel Hidalgo is preferred.
Todd Clements caught the eye with his long-game in Belgium and, like Veerman, he’s a winner at Albatross. He’d be of some interest along with anyone who pops up on recent Italian Open leaderboards such is the apparent strength of the connection between these two events.
My final selection though is another German, with MAX ROTTLUFF having done enough to merit support at 200/1 and upwards.
This former college teammate of Jon Rahm hasn’t quite kicked on as a professional but he’s taken his chances when they’ve arrived, including twice on the Challenge Tour last year.
Notably, he’d been 21st and 14th before the first of them, 12th and 29th before the second, so finishes of 13th and 24th the last twice might just be an indication that he’s again ready to strike.
To do so at this level requires a further step up but his short-game looks in good nick, he’s started to hit more greens, and he does have a share of 28th to his name from three previous starts in this tournament.
Rottluff opened with a four-under 68 that week and is an improved player now, so perhaps he can be among the best of the locals in an event they have regularly threatened to win. Leave him out if you can’t get a price that starts with a two.
Posted at 0900 BST on 28/05/24
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