Clearly, we're going to need some help from that troublesome putter of his but he'd gained strokes a week earlier and season's-worst figures will hopefully soon look like an anomaly. His previous worst came in the PGA Championship and, days later, he ranked a very decent 21st in Belgium, while he produced a similar turnaround from Open to Nexo Championship earlier this summer.

It's a bit of a guessing game in that regard but we should be able to rely on his usual blend of fairway-finding and crisp approach shots, and it's one which saw him win the Open de Bretagne last year on his way to battlefield promotion back to the DP World Tour. For one who has been down to the EuroPro circuit and back, to then go and win in Mauritius was deeply impressive.

France plays a big part in Parry's whole career. Back in 2009, his very first win came in Toulouse. That led, less than a year later, to his second, this time in Chambourcy, which is just 20 minutes from this week's venue. Two became three on the HotelPlanner Tour in 2024, and three could well become four if he finds this course as suitable as I think he might.

Parry is currently eighth in the Race to Dubai, but more importantly sixth among those who don't yet have PGA Tour cards, down two places after Wentworth. He's one big week from completing a phenomenal journey and we'll take a chance on it coming here, in France, on the strength of a much better putting display.

Some players in this field will be delighted to get away from Le Golf National for a year but I can't fathom whether or not EWEN FERGUSON will be one of them.

The Scot plays well there but blew a good lead with a closing 76 two years ago and again played poorly when not out of things entering round four last year, so perhaps a temporary change of scenery will be good for the soul as he seeks his fourth DP World Tour title.

Last summer brought the most recent of them, at a tree-lined, parkland course in Germany, and the previous one had come at Galgorm Castle, a course where straight drivers and quality iron players like him tend to thrive.

Significantly, both these and even his slightly more surprising Qatar breakthrough came after signs of promise in previous weeks. He'd contended twice in the run-up to Eichenried, had been inside the top 10 for most of his start immediately prior to Galgorm Castle, and Doha came four weeks after he'd blown a big lead in the Kenya Open, with solid golf between the two.

The tournaments we're talking about here all fit with his profile and so does the Soudal Open, where he ought to have won in the spring before finishing fourth the following week. Right through his career, Ferguson has emerged from a slump to string together big finishes and that's what makes last week's top-five at Wentworth potentially such a big clue as to his prospects on another parkland course here in Paris.

Although it ended with a mistake off the 18th tee when chasing an eagle which wouldn't have been enough regardless, Ferguson took plenty from the way he performed alongside Patrick Reed and Matt Fitzpatrick and said he was eager to get back to work, telling The Scotsman: "I felt like I'd held my own all day playing alongside two major champions and I will take a lot from that."

He's seen his practice partners Connor Syme, Calum Hill and Richard Mansell all win this year and Ferguson, buoyed by his best Rolex Series performance yet, can join them in the winners' circle.

Of the Eisenhower Trophy group, French duo Martin Couvra and Tom Vaillant were always going to be popular, but the home player I was most drawn to was Frederic Lacroix. He's won an amateur event here, hails from Paris and has form at some of the courses mentioned, but he's not exactly firing and were this being held in another country, we'd be getting three-figure prices that better reflect the apparent state of his game.

Instead, I'll take a chance on WENYI DING, who was a decent 25th in the Eisenhower Trophy a month after he'd become the first Chinese player to win the US Junior Amateur, rising to third in the world thanks to an excellent career at Arizona State.

The reasoning for this one is simpler than I can sometimes make it sound, and it's how well he's performed when going back to courses he's played before. So far this season that's happened three times and he's been fifth (Australia), 14th (Singapore, reduced to 54 holes) and eighth (China), three of his best four results overall.

With the other of those having come on a tree-lined course in Turkey where Couvra won, plus a very respectable 20th in Kenya and 14th in Joburg, this promising all-rounder might just enjoy having a second crack at Saint-Nom-la-Breteche, where he shot rounds of 72-68 three summers ago to finish alongside Sam Bairstow and just ahead of Couvra.

More recently, he missed the cut with two level-par rounds at Crans, one approach shot in round two proving very costly, and then couldn't get into the BMW PGA field from his lowly category. Hopefully fresher than some after a busy six weeks of DP World Tour golf and with his iron play showing signs of improvement of late despite that Swiss mishap, Ding, who possesses a sharp short-game, can remind us all of his ability.

Easier to justify is GUIDO MIGLIOZZI, who I must admit I wasn't convinced by until he backed up some approach-play improvements in Ireland when leading the field last week at Wentworth.

The Italian will have been frustrated no doubt that this upturn has coincided with a downturn in his putting, which had previously powered 13th in Crans and a decent British Masters, but things could just come together now and if he can club down off a few tees, then all the better.

Migliozzi has struggled with driver all season and missed far too many cuts, but he's back inside the top 100 on the Race to Dubai now and is precisely the type to pounce if this ball-striking improvement lasts. That's exactly what he did last spring, when he led the field in approach play in Belgium then went 8-1 over the following fortnight, and in 2022 when his smash-and-grab in this very event came a week after he'd struck it much better in Italy.

A winner in Belgium, France and the Netherlands as well as at a tree-lined course in Kenya, Migliozzi should relish this return to France, where he also won a good amateur title as a teenager, and improvements in his iron play have always been a big pointer. Perhaps that'll prove the case again and while popular since betting opened, his ceiling is high enough to be taking anything 66/1 and upwards.

I did wonder whether last year's hero Dan Bradbury might put up a good defence, which is what he did when third in Joburg. He's hitting it well, accuracy both off the tee and on approach is what his game is all about, and the only two players who bettered Sunday's 66 were Si Woo Kim and Rory McIlroy.

The worry for me is that his short-game is a big problem and while the putter has improved lately, his chipping hasn't. Given that these greens are more dramatic than those at Le Golf National, siding with a player ranked 162nd this season and 157th last in strokes-gained around the green isn't something I want to be doing.

Darius van Driel made some appeal as a Rinkven contender who previously won in Kenya and has shown more lately, including for much of Sunday's final round at Wentworth, but I'll sign off with two Danes with upside at massive odds.

First is LUCAS BJERREGAARD, who has been in eye-catching form since returning from the summer break, with finishes of eighth and 14th among his last four starts.

The two-time DP World Tour winner missed the cut on the number when making nothing in the Irish Open last time and, between those two better results, had missed the cut at the Belfry too, but that's the wrong course for him and one sub-70 round in 14 tries says as much.

Five top-30s in his las 10 starts demonstrate that he's started to find his game again after a miserable start to his return season, and it might just be in the nick of time as he's 140th in the Race to Dubai and has the class and experience to produce the big results he needs over the next six weeks.