European Tour Fantasy Golf Predictions – 2017 Joburg Open

Fantasy Golf Picks & Predictions for the 2017 Joburg Open

2017 Joburg Open European Tour Fantasy Preview

After a golfing year remarkable for all manner of reasons, we sign off 2017 at the tri-sanctioned Joburg Open.

Presented by the European Tour with heavy involvement from the Sunshine and Asian Tours, the rules have been re-written for this year’s edition of the tournament. Normally one of the first up in each calendar year, the 2018 edition has been moved to December and will feature a field of some 240 players playing across two courses – Firethorn and Bushwillow – at Randpark Golf Club on Thursday and Friday.

The field is then cut to 65 players and ties for a weekend at the tougher Firethorn course.

This longer stretch, at 7,595 yards for its Par 72, hosted the South Africa Open in 1995 and 2000 and is known for its demanding finish – holes 16, 17 and 18 have been described as ‘potential card-wreckers’ by 1995 SA Open champion Retief Goosen.

Zander Lombard of South Africa plays from a greenside bunker on the…

Zander Lombard of South Africa plays from a greenside bunker on the 18th during the third round of the Joburg Open at Royal Johannesburg and Kensington Golf Club on January 16, 2016 in Johannesburg,… Get premium, high resolution news photos at Getty Images

Bushwillow is said to be the easier of the two courses, with tree-lined fairways and a parkland layout familiar to European Tour purists. At just 7,114 yards for its Par 71, the stretch plays even shorter than that when taking into account an altitude of some 5,000ft above sea level.

As ever in South Africa, both courses are mostly populated by the Kikuyu grass native to the country, with Bentgrass greens added for further complexity.

As well as the honor of winning the event, there’s plenty at stake for all in the field this week. The Asian Tour Order of Merit is still live, meaning that those involved have an excellent chance of accumulating some much-needed points in South Africa, while once again three passes to the British Open Championship are available to high finishers not already qualified.

That was the route to Royal Birkdale that Darren Fitchardt took when he won this event back in February. The South African finished a stroke clear of the rest in a tournament reduced to 54-holes due to storms and heavy rain, and in the process booked his pass to the third major of the calendar year.

He returns to defend his title in what is, unsurprisingly, a field packed with some of the finest South African players in the game. Louis Oosthuizen takes the bragging rights as the most decorated, although with two wins in 2017 – including last week’s Mauritius Open – Dylan Frittelli has started his own journey towards golf’s promised land.

They will be joined by the likes of George Coetzee, Haydn Porteous, Dean Burmester and Thomas Aiken, while the international charge will be led by the in-form Paul Peterson, Romain Langasque – third in Mauritius, and the Open De Portugal champion, Matt Wallace.

So who makes the grade for our final draft of 2017?

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This Week’s Joburg Open European Tour Fantasy Picks & Predictions

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This Week’s Joburg Open Fantasy Picks

Louis Oosthuizen – $11,700 – Eight of the last eleven winners of this event have been South African, and typically they’ve been a high-quality bunch too in Porteous, Coetzee, Branden Grace and Charl Schwartzel.

Obviously they won prior to the tournament changing format, but even so we can have confidence that drafting Louis Oosthuizen even at this princely sum will pay dividends.

The major winner played at the Mauritius Open last week but his trip was as much about business as leisure: Oosthuizen has been tasked with designing and overseeing the build of a brand new course on the island.

So you can forgive him if his mind wasn’t actually focused on the task in hand, and yet he still found himself tied for the lead heading into the business end of the tournament. A slack iron off the tee at sixteen resulted in a triple bogey, however, and that was the end of his challenge.

But by and large Oosthuizen played some decent golf, and back on home soil in front of an expectant crowd we would expect him to raise his game yet further. That could well be the recipe for success required from the former British Open champion.

Haydn Porteous – $9,400 – The 2016 Joburg Open champion has since added to his haul of European Tour titles at the Czech Masters in the summer, and undoubtedly has the game to emulate many of the other exceptional South African players.

There have been sporadic returns to form for Porteous of late, including a T12 finish in the Nedbank Challenge on home soil. That was a track that, like Firethorn, he will be able to open up his shoulders and let rip some booming drives.

Indeed, Porteous has already shown a liking for Randpark: he won a notable amateur event here in 2011….we say won, we mean obliterated the field by some 14 strokes!

Oliver Bekker – $7,700 – Largely unknown outside of South Africa, Oliver Bekker caught the eye with a T9 finish at the Mauritius Open last week. He was just two shots adrift of the lead at the 36-hole mark, too.

One of the reasons why Bekker is a tempting draft in this kind of event is his phenomenal record on the Sunshine Tour. He’s a seven-time winner on home soil and lifted three trophies in 2017 alone, which suggests the 32-year-old is just coming into the peak years of his career.

Unsurprisingly Bekker tops the Order of Merit, and most pleasing of all is his powerful driving off the tee; that will stand him in good stead on the lengthy Firethorn track.

Thomas Aiken – $7,600 – Two top-10s and another top-20 in co-sanctioned events last season means that Thomas Aiken is hard to overlook this week, despite his current struggles with form.

Besides which, there have been green shoots of recovery. Aiken fired 69-64 at the Hong Kong Open to sit T2 at the halfway point, and while he drifted away from there he will hopefully have taken plenty of confidence from a decent effort.

Aiken’s last European Tour title came on African soil in 2014, and if there’s anywhere he’s likely to rediscover his best golf it’s in Johannesburg, the place of his birth.

Romain Langasque – $7,300 – There’s a slight deviation away from the classy South African theme here to draft Romain Langasque, the talented Frenchman who is well respected by his peers.

Not that that translated into form for Langasque in 2017, with a catalogue of missed cuts in the second half of the year meaning he has lost his outright playing privileges for 2018.

But an invitation to the Mauritius Open got him on the plane, and boy did he take it: finishing T3 and ranking second for Greens in Regulation.

So he makes the field in South Africa this week, and this is a country he routinely enjoys playing his golf in with three top-20 finishes in as many starts here last season.

Jaco Prinsloo – $6,700 – At this kind of price, it is more than tempting to take a chance on a young man who has become something of a Joburg specialist.

He won at this very Randpark course on the IGT Tour earlier in the year, as well as a stone’s throw away at Country Club Johannesburg on Ernie Els’ Big Easy Tour.

There will be good memories for Prinsloo then ahead of this week, but can he mix it with the big boys? The signs are good on that front.

The 28-year-old won his first Sunshine Tour title as recently as November, and in Mauritius last week he comfortably sat T18 at the halfway point before drifting away over the weekend. With a T11 in this event back in February, there are plenty of positive signs.

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