In some ways it is appropriate that a process which began last September ends at the top of a mountain, where some of the finest young players in Europe will complete their bids for Ryder Cup selection. Luke Donald has six picks and might now wish he had none, such are the options at his disposal. He'll name them on Monday.
This isn't to say that Europe has the luxury enjoyed by their opponents, who could leave a two-time major winner at home. The point is that beyond the guaranteed eight, Donald could name any four of a dozen players who are hard to separate. Is there a chance he names one Hojgaard twin and takes the other one too, in case a swap is needed?
In other ways, it is wholly inappropriate that this is where the talking stops. Not only is Crans-sur-Sierre one of the quirkiest courses on the calendar, meaning any one of the contenders could be made to look out of sorts, but two weeks from now is the DP World Tour's flagship event. It would be a shame were Europe to name their 12 then watch the 13th man win at Wentworth.
Just how much emphasis Donald is placing on this fortnight is hard to say, but I hope it's on the lower side. 'Stick to the plan' was once the Team Europe mantra and if that plan involved Adrian Meronk, then perhaps it still should. And if Donald has determined, as he should have, that he can't go to Rome without Nicolai Hojgaard, then how he copes in the thin Alps air shouldn't matter one bit.
What will matter is who qualifies and, on both European and World points lists, that also remains uncertain. Favourite Matt Fitzpatrick isn't here because of that – he'll be in the team whether he overtakes Tommy Fleetwood or not – but Robert MacIntyre most certainly is, as he looks to hold onto the place he's occupied since that fabulous performance at the Scottish Open.
Bjork is without doubt heading towards the best season of his career. Seven top-10s is a Tour-high figure, nobody can better his 69.50 scoring average, and he's second in strokes-gained total. He has done everything but win.
That winning part is the problem. He's managed it once, four years ago in China, but since then has always found somebody too good, whether at the end of a proper battle with Eddie Pepperell at Walton Heath, or when Daniel Gavins holed spectacularly to edge him out at Al Hamra back in February.
Everyone ahead of him and several of those behind have been more prolific and he definitely has questions to answer, but Bjork's limitations as a player are probably the main factor. When you drive the ball he does, shorter than almost anyone on the DP World Tour, chances to win won't come along often. He's never held a clear 54-hole lead.
So, what we need is a course where his accuracy counts and his lack of power isn't a problem, and we have it here. At this kind of altitude even Bjork hits it far enough to get to the back-nine par-fives in two, with the ninth hole a lay-up for a good chunk of the field anyway. He's gained strokes here off the tee in each of the last two years, so his driver really isn't a handicap.
Paul will leapfrog MacIntyre should he capture this title and with the greatest of respect to him, that would change Donald's plans. I simply cannot see how the German, consistently good though he has been for a year or more, would command selection given the options available.
As an ardent Europe supporter I'd rather he didn't do that but we'll have to remove such emotive aspects and focus on a game which really could be ideal for Crans. Paul relies on precision approach play above all, ranking 11th this season, and so small tend to be his misses that his scrambling stats are top-class, too.
That's a very similar profile to the likes of Richie Ramsay and Sebastian Soderberg, as well as some of the more high-profile champions, and Paul is looking to become the fourth course debutant in succession to capture this title. All three before him did it after a top-10 finish, and that's exactly what he mustered in Prague.
Rozner is a three-time DP World Tour champion including this season in Mauritius, where he offered a reminder of how good he is under pressure. That was again on display at the Hero Cup and while not particularly on the Ryder Cup radar and highly unlikely to be selected in any scenario, you could argue he deserves to be.
The reason for backing him here though requires far less speculation: he's simply shown that he knows how to play this course very effectively, something I'm not sure form figures of 13-4 even do justice to. In both of these two appearances, which include a final-round 62 on debut and then 65-64-66 over the closing 54 holes last year, Rozner has led the tee-to-green stats, putting to a pretty abysmal standard.
Maybe there's something about these greens that will forever fox him, but he'd been struggling with his putter prior to both those visits whereas this time, there's been just enough encouragement across the Open and the Czech Masters, both times on slow greens. They won't be quite as slow in Crans, but seldom are they genuinely quick and they won't be after Monday's rain.
Molinari's breakthrough Challenge Tour campaign began with victory up at high altitude in Colombia and then saw him double his tally in Nairobi, at the same course where Soderberg would capture his first title some years later.
We of course know Crans is a good course for Molinari already, because he was runer-up here in 2010, during a spell when he carded 18 successive rounds of par or better at Crans. In four appearances from 2009 to 2014, few played it better.
And while he's not made an impact since, last year's 29th was further evidence that, at his best, Molinari is well suited to this course. It came after four missed cuts in a row and despite a balky putter, Dodo ranking seventh in the field for strokes-gained tee-to-green.
That's now three victories in less than five seasons for the experienced Spaniard, always when scoring is a little tougher than it was in Prague, and I felt he did enough at the Czech Masters to suggest he could return to his best here.
That course, where he'd missed the cut previously, is no good for a short hitter like him and while he was very poor in the Open, before that Campillo had produced marginally his best effort yet at The Renaissance, on the back of a top-15 in Germany.
He's not in the red-hot form we saw in the spring but conditions have been against him and that will no longer be the case at Crans, where things have clicked lately. Campillo shot a second-round 65 in 2018, and in both 2021 and 2022 found himself right in the mix throughout, closing with a 66 for fourth place last year.
Strong approach work and good putting have been behind his success in Switzerland and while we do need to see improvement with his irons, that's possible now there's a shift in emphasis.
Campillo looks excellent value at 100/1 and a bet at upwards of 66s.
Wilson made the staking plan at 250/1 last year, showed some promise with a Friday 64 to make the cut, and then won in Denmark the following week – without doubt the lowlight of an otherwise good few months.
The case for him hasn't changed. Wilson finished no worse than 23rd on his first five starts at Crans, contending all the way through to the final round in four of them, and has always had the game for the course. At his best he's a fine iron player and his short-game can be absolute dynamite.
Even when at his lowest he could be competitive here and if we forgive last week's missed cut on a long, soft, driver-heavy course, after four weeks off, then he's played well throughout summer, most notably when runner-up at the Belfry.
"I want to win before the end of the season, I really do. I want to have a strong second half of the year. My main goal is to beat last year. I always try to improve on the last year, that would always be my end goal.
"I'd like to get into the DP World Tour Championship at the end of the season, that would be really nice but that will be a byproduct of continuing to build on the process I'm currently making on Tour.
"I just want to play solid, get my game in good shape heading into next year and then hopefully build all of the good habits and processes in place and keep riding them out. I believe there is a lot of good stuff to come in the future."
There aren't many better courses for him than this one and he's preferred to Morrison among the English players looking to keep up the winning run, although watch for Richard Mansell, a friend of Todd Clements who placed here on debut. His game was in better shape then but he has stacks of ability and all the inspiration he could need.
Posted at 1700 BST on 28/08/23
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