From Ryder Cup future to Ryder Cup present, the DP World Tour swaps Rome for Paris, Marco Simone for Le Golf National, as the (Cazoo, like everything these days) Open de France makes a welcome return to the schedule.
This event was right there when the European Tour began some fifty years ago and has been played on what's a generally popular course since 1991. It's one that cemented its place in those imaginary golfing history books when finally getting its Ryder Cup in 2018, as Europe thumped the USA under the expert guidance of Thomas Bjorn.
That tournament is unique, but it still tell us much about Le Golf National and what's required here, on the outskirts of Paris. Or should that be what's not required, namely driver, which is so often taken out of the hands of straight-jacketed professionals who desperately want to reach for it but know they really ought not to, for the most part at least.
The United States team didn't much like it whereas for star man Francesco Molinari, it was and is perfect. Hit fairways (or rather don't miss them by a long way), hit greens (ditto) and you'll do fine here, but stray from that path and there's thick rough, penal bunkering, and water all around. Stadium golf it may be, but of a quite different kind to that which we're likely to see next September.
Nevertheless there are some comparisons with soon-to-be stablemate Marco Simone, as there are with Celtic Manor, Gleneagles and particularly Sawgrass. For something tangible to go with the speculation note that from 2010 to 2012, the Wales Open went to Graeme McDowell, Alex Noren and Thonghai Jaidee. There have been seven renewals of the Open de France since, and that trio have won four of them.
One thing that certainly ties these courses together is toughness – potentially increased by some recent damage to this one – and that's just fine for two members of the world's top 50 who are vying for favouritism, Patrick Reed and Thomas Pieters.
Reed flies in from Chicago, making it four successive weeks of transatlantic travel, and is playing well enough to cause a stir just as he did at Wentworth. He'd dearly love to win during the week of the Presidents Cup and his chance is an obvious one, but he did play poorly here for much of the Ryder Cup and fatigue is enough of a concern to ignore odds of 14/1.
Pieters then looks the man to beat. We might not think of this as a course made for the powerful Belgian, but he says it's one of his favourites and has made five cuts in six, the other a disqualification. It was here that he made his European Tour debut a decade ago and, just as was the case when his mentor Nicolas Colsaerts won the event when last it was played, there's a heightened level of comfort in Paris.
He's hard to leave out at 18/1 and should give his running once again, but RYAN FOX is the other top-50 player in this field and is just preferred for the headline wager at a nice price.
Only Pieters is enjoying a better season than Fox, a winner in the Middle East and then robbed, for all that he left the keys in the door, when second in the Dutch Open. The pair rank first and second in strokes-gained total and now boast all-round games which are helping them to fulfil their potential, their respective weaknesses turned to strengths.
Where Pieters' improvement on the greens and between the ears should see him return to the Ryder Cup fold in a year, Fox can count himself most unfortunate not to be playing in the Presidents Cup this week. He's in fact just ahead of Reed in the world rankings* and it's difficult to argue he's not among the best dozen international players who were eligible for selection.
"I’m not going to sulk about this," he said. "But it has affected me. I found out I had been left out when I was in Switzerland and didn’t do too well there. There was some rust involved there, too, though.
"Hopefully this week (at the BMW PGA) I can show Trevor what he is missing. I’ll be trying to do that, but there are a lot of really good players here for that to happen. And this is generally not a place where I’ve done too well in the past. I think I’ve only ever had one top-20. But this year I do have some extra motivation. I’ll be doing my best to at least give Trevor some second thoughts."
It's pretty clear that he was hopeful rather than expectant at Wentworth, where he withdrew after Friday's second round was cancelled (editor's note: this was due to injury which ), so this is a far better chance to show Immelman what he's missing, something that surely helped drive Lucas Herbert to a big performance in Italy.
That sense of additional motivation combined with his clear preference for Le Golf National makes for a compelling candidate, one who all but deserves more silverware to make up for his misfortune, and Fox can go out and prove his point.
Course form tends to hold up well here, even in the case of shock winner Colsaerts. McDowell won his two titles back-to-back, Jaidee had been second and 10th before getting it done in 2016, and Noren also won following successive top-10 finishes. Bernd Wiesberger made all eight cuts and had contended a year before his stunning finish and the only exception is Tommy Fleetwood, whose record here reads MC-MC-MC-MC-1-MC, and 4-1-0 in the Ryder Cup.
It's also striking how classy a list it is and that all were previous winners, the last man to secure his first victory here being qualifier Pablo Larrazabal back in 2008. Le Golf National isn't necessarily complex in that for the most part the decision is made by the course on behalf of the player, but it requires real nerve and isn't necessarily a place where one would expect rookies or maidens to fend off those with a little more nous.
For now it could catch out the Hojgaard twins and Thorbjorn Olesen might lead the Danish challenge, at a course where his own record is patchy but includes two near-misses plus a fine end to his sole Ryder Cup appearance. He was sorely tempting having won again this year but there's no doubt he was at the very top of his game ahead of both the 2011 and 2017 renewals, and I don't think the course is as good a fit as it might seem.
Instead it's on to another former Ryder Cup player, ANDY SULLIVAN, for whom this certainly is the right kind of test.
Sullivan demonstrated how valuable experience can be with a missed cut on debut, but since then has never failed to play well here, with finishes of 26-6-5-13-21-23.
Sixth in 2015 and then firmly in the mix in both 2016 and 2017, he also started well here in 2018 and across the first three of these ranked third, sixth and seventh in greens hit, and third, fifth and third in ball-striking. Time and again he's arrived here and produced some of his best golf and it's no wonder he called it 'one of my favourite weeks of the year' on his penultimate visit.
Perhaps 23rd place in 2019 tells us as much as his stronger efforts in earlier years as he arrived in dismal form yet still found something, and he's certainly one who will be glad to see the event return. Only recently has Sullivan climbed inside the cut off for 2023 tour membership and this presents an ideal chance to really push towards the DP World Tour Championship, a tournament he's almost won and dearly loves.
One of the straightest drivers on the circuit, the Spaniard is another who has contended here in the past, leading at halfway in 2017 (seventh) and sitting within sight of the leaders a year later (12th). Both of these were far stronger renewals and so was that of 2016, when he sat second after round one.
Three times a winner and always in Europe, including over the border in Belgium, the 29-year-old knows how to get the job done and has been hinting at winning again all year, with four top-fives from his 18 starts on this circuit, and zero missed cuts since May (albeit he's played a couple of events without one).
Like Otaegui, he was hurt by the draw at Marco Simone, a course which I don't think is for him, so a missed cut while doing nothing terribly isn't a worry. Indeed, I return to the simple reason for supporting him in Switzerland, where he finished 23rd when putting poorly: how well he's played at courses we know he likes throughout the season.
Kinhult's four best tee-to-green displays and indeed his four best finishes so far in 2022 have come at Doha, in Kenya, at Hillside and at Crans. Those are places where he's either contended or, as is the case at Hillside, won in the past. That he's even managed to punch above his weight at places like Albatross, home of the Czech Masters and a course where power is king, tells me he's back close to his best.
Morrison has done really well to keep his head above water on the DP World Tour, winning twice in a long career despite battling Crohn's disease throughout it. It's a real testament to his character and ability to squeeze everything out of his game that he's only lost his card once since 2010, and got it back immediately at Qualifying School.
Thanks to another solid season he'll be back for more in 2023 but it could get better yet, as he's been playing nicely of late. Anyone who shoots rounds of 62 and 64, as he has among his last three outings, is clearly doing a lot right and throughout each of them he's been inside the top 20 at halfway before fading.
The Welshman is something of a course specialist having been fifth and sixth here in back-to-back years and been right in contention in 2019, when third entering the final round before a disappointing Sunday.
He's had three or four genuine chances to win since making his debut at Le Golf National 20 years ago and it suits his game, which is based around accuracy and, at his best, saw him rank among the better iron players in Europe and boast a sharp short-game to go with it.
At 46, his best days are gone but since rediscovering his game a couple of years ago he has been a persistent threat, often in good company. Last season's best saw him finish runner-up to Billy Horschel at Wentworth, just as he had to Christiaan Bezuidenhout in the previous year's South African Open, and he has eight top-10s in his last 50 starts.
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