Fantasy Golf Picks & Predictions – Aberdeen Asset Management Scottish Open

European Tour Fantasy Golf Picks and Predictions for the 2017 Aberdeen Asset Management Scottish Open

The Aberdeen Asset Management Scottish Open Fantasy Preview

This is the last chance for the massed ranks of the PGA and European Tours to get their Links game up to scratch prior to the British Open at Royal Birkdale, which gets underway on June 20.

This week’s assignment, along with last week’s Irish Open, are the perfect precursors to the third major of the year – hence why a field including Rickie Fowler, Rory McIlroy, Patrick Reed, and reigning Open champion Henrik Stenson has assembled on the west coast of Scotland.

One player who must be feeling his Links game is pretty tight right now is Jon Rahm, as he followed a top-ten return at the Open de France by blitzing the Irish Open last time out, taking the spoils at a mark of -24. The Spaniard looks to be a great early pick for the Open next week.

Rahm takes a well-deserved week off but will no doubt be keeping a keen eye on this Scottish Open field. A tough assignment is said to await the players at Dundonald Links, because despite its short stature (Par 72, 7,055 yards) the greens are said to be a) very small, and b) offer rather severe run-off areas. Accuracy is the name of the game in Scotland this week.

For gamers who enjoy having as much data as possible at their fingertips when making their drafts, Dundonald course designer Kyle Phillips is also responsible for Kingsbarns, one of a trio of host tracks of the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship, and The Grove – host of the 2016 British Masters.

And of course, with a similar yardage and complimentary conditions, last week’s Irish Open is also worth keeping in your armoury.

Jostling for position at the head of the daily fantasy listings are Rickie Fowler, a former winner of this event in 2015, Rory McIlroy – fresh from a missed cut in his home tournament last week, perennial favorite Adam Scott, and Henrik Stenson, who won his first major a stone’s throw from Dundonald at Royal Troon. You could, in some respects, make a case for any of that four to enjoy success this week.

But who are the half-dozen we will be drafting on side?

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Our Aberdeen Asset Management Scottish Open Fantasy Picks & Predictions

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The Aberdeen Asset Management Scottish Open Fantasy Picks

Rickie Fowler – $11,400 – It’s an ultra-competitive week for gamers to try and sift through, but we’re happy enough to back one of the big guns as our main pick given his current form and affinity for Scottish golf.

Rickie has amassed nine top-20 finishes in his last 12 starts, and that alone makes him the most likely winner of this event this week.

Factor in a previous win at the Scottish Open (at the Gullane Links in 2015), plus add in another top-ten the year before at Royal Aberdeen, and we find a player with a Links game north of the border that is as strong as anybody’s.

Around Fowler at the head of the salary soup are a number of players we can make cases against. McIlroy missed the cut in Ireland, Stenson has not played his best golf in 2017 and Scott has not played in a Scottish Open edition since it moved to coastal courses in 2010. Fowler is, quite simply, the smartest investment of the bunch.

Patrick Reed – $9,700 – Reed has been playing some outstanding golf of late, with six top-20s in his last eight starts over on the PGA TOUR. Seven of his last twelve rounds have been 67s or lower.

The Texan boasts a decent record on Scottish soil as well, perhaps aided by his upbringing in windy, open conditions, and he has returned 12-10-20 in his last trio of outings on Links soil.

Kyle Phillips has said that a strong short game and scrambling will be necessary for success at Dundonald, and as we know Reed is as good as anybody when a light touch is required. All of the ingredients are here for a strong showing.

Andy Sullivan – $8,700 – We drafted Sullivan for the Irish Open last week, with the key pointers we gave concerning his love of Links golf.

A T20 finish there may not look wholly impressive on paper, but he closed out his effort with three rounds of 68, and for us that shows plenty of form. That’s four top-20s in a row now for the pint-sized putter.

Sullivan loves playing golf on the west coast of Scotland too, with T12 in the British Open at Troon last year following a T6 at Castle Stuart in this event the week before.

Pablo Larrazabal – $7,000 – The Spaniard has been in fine form this season, and while he may have missed the cut at the Irish Open that was by a solitary stroke, and we’re not going to lose sleep over a guy missing the weekend given that he was -3 at the time.

Larrazabal has history in this tournament with a T2 at Royal Aberdeen in 2014, and his Links form is pretty good across the board.

And just look at that form: seven top-25s in thirteen starts in 2017, with five of those being top-15s. As a prolific birdie maker, Larrazabal is an excellent DFS pick this week.

Ryan Fox – $6,700 – Huge off the tee, we were as surprised as anybody that Ryan Fox was able to cope with the ball-striking test of the Irish Open last week, finishing T4, although that is merely the continuation of the Kiwi’s recent excellent form.

He hasn’t finished outside the top 30 in any of his last five starts, with a formline of 4-6-26-23-21 showing real signs of progression.

A winner on a Northern Ireland Links track on the Challenge Tour in 2016 and second in the Scottish Hydro Challenge, Fix seems to love an outing on British soil.

Stewart Cink – $6,500 – As consistent as it gets, Cink is hugely underrated by DFS pricing systems and once again finds himself of the end of a surprisingly low budget salary.

That’s good news for us though: we’ve bagged a low-tier pick who has made 12/14 cuts on the PGA TOUR, with ten top-30s and a pair of top-10s.

Unbeknown to many, Cink actually boasts a pretty good track record on Scottish Links courses too. In 2015 he finished T20 at The Open and T9 at the Alfred Dunhill, and his Links collection was complete with victory in the British Open at Royal Turnberry in 2009.

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