Some time between Robert MacIntyre's top-10 finish at the Open and Kevin Kisner's play-off victory at the Wyndham, Ryder Cup fever set in. Since then, the biennial team event, by which it must legally be referred to at second mention, has bounced between the back and front of everyone's mind. Birdie the first couple of holes of a decent tournament, and chances are you will become someone's idea of a wild card.
If it's too much for you then get checking the green list for a short holiday, because the next fortnight is going to 'go off' as they say in Ibiza, recently downgraded to amber. The fact that Marco Simone Golf & Country Club hosts the Italian Open is not going to help matters, either, because the Ryder Cup comes here in 2023. There is no escape and nor will there be until October.
Fitzpatrick has won at a rate of once in every 14 or so European Tour starts and is 14/1 with the added insurance of seven or eight places. He certainly isn't a bad price, having lost a play-off for the Scottish Open on his last appearance at this level, and he has a score to settle having seemingly been in command of this two years ago before Wiesberger mugged him on the back-nine.
Travel issues notwithstanding — it seems he'll be on the lookout for a new five-wood — he has to be considered having been a factor on each and every visit to Italy, twice finishing in the top three from just five starts in this event.
There are of course concerns as to the overall state of his game, the Italian having struggled since an encouraging start to the year, but Friday's second-round 64 in Switzerland offered plenty of encouragement that he's not too far away. Prior to it, he'd started well in both the Wyndham and the Open, made the halfway cut in Scotland, and in June finished 13th in the US Open.
Put another way he's a classic example of a player whose form could look a heck of a lot stronger for a shot here or there, those MCs perhaps a red herring, and after a nice finish in the Alps he looks to have tuned up for a big fortnight in events which laid the foundations for his breakthrough summer in 2018.
Molinari junior won this event in 2006 and 2016, first when ranked outside the world's top 200 and then when returning to Europe following a poor run on the PGA Tour. As well as those two victories he has five further top-10s and has been inside the top 25 in 12 of his 19 appearances in his national Open. There is absolutely no doubt he has raised his game time and again when back in Italy.
There were certainly plenty of positives to take out of the performance, not least a continuation of his strong approach play and increasingly effective putting, and Kaymer might be able to build on them in an event he should've won in 2015 and one in which he has managed top-eight finishes in four of his eight starts.
He's won both at Sawgrass and Le Golf National as well as three good efforts from as many starts at Celtic Manor, and with Ryder Cup vice-captaincy looming will be among those aware that winning one of these next two events could yet change things. Many will have given up on him but I wouldn't be one of them and his overall level of form is very strong, albeit missing that piece of silverware.
Under the right circumstances he can boss a field like this and Marco Simone may provide them in a way that Crans, where his record now reads MC-60-MC-12-MC, does not. Certainly he's got the power for all three par-fives, including the downhill 18th which stretches beyond 600 yards, and a couple of short par-fours may allow him to open up his shoulders and go for the green.
His form at Celtic Manor reads 3-15, he's gone 29-DQ-16-13-31 in Paris where he's not able to hit his favourite club very often, and he's been in contention for this title having played in the final group at halfway three years ago. With his putting much better than it has been and the driver really starting to purr, if he can dial in his approaches again he can be a big threat at the sort of modern, exposed course he so clearly enjoys.
Nothing he's done since winning deters me from that view. First of all he confessed to being exhausted at the Open, for which he qualified just days earlier with that win in Scotland, and from there he had to fly to Tennessee for the WGC-St Jude Invitational. Sensibly, he took a break after finishing down the field there and returned just last week at Crans, a course which takes away the advantages he has at what you might call normal tour venues.
Three good rounds in four suggest he's ready to kick on, and he's sure to find this longer, less claustrophobic course much more to his liking. It was following three good rounds in four in Ireland that he won in Scotland, and history could well repeat in Italy, where he doesn't concede an experience edge which was again true at The Renaissance, only used twice previously.
Lee has it all, as a long driver known for his ball-striking but who relied on his short-game for that breakthrough in July. At a modern course which he can likely overpower, prices north of 50/1 look generous.
All of that put him on the radar before closer inspection revealed he shot two 65s at Crans to finish 18th, matching his best rounds there and producing just his second top-20 in 13 visits. It was encouraging to see his approach work fire for three of the four rounds and who knows where he'd have finished but for a shocking quadruple-bogey on Friday, his only bad mistake of the tournament.
Before that, Colsaerts also offered real encouragement with his iron play to finish 18th in the Cazoo Open and with his putter having warmed up with every start so far this summer, having taken some time off at the start of the year, he looks in a good place ahead of his return to a tournament which has been kind to him.
Quiros has his back against the wall having , and a player of his class might just be dangerous in the situation he's in. So while there's none of that Celtic Manor or Paris form in the book, I'll take encouragement from a win on a big-hitters' course in Sicily, plus the fact he ranked seventh off the tee in Wales and seventh with his approaches a week earlier in Scotland.
Marry those two and Quiros, who has putted the lights out a couple of times recently, might just rise from the ashes as he has done more than once in the past.
Posted at 1835 BST on 30/08/21
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