European Tour Fantasy Golf Predictions – Trophee Hassan II

2018 Trophee Hassan II Fantasy Preview

Last week’s Open de Espana was one of those tournaments where you didn’t need to be Inspector Clouseau to identify the winner. Jon Rahm, one of the best players in the world, was playing on his home course in a weak European Tour field. The rest, as they say, is history.

The Spaniard didn’t have it all his own way, with countryman Nacho Elvira and Paul Dunne both contending, but in the heat of a Sunday battle it was Rahm’s greater ‘experience’ – okay he’s still a young guy, but we mean in the sense of winning golf tournaments – that proved decisive.

Jon Rahm of Spain acknowledges the crowd on the 18th green during Day…

Jon Rahm of Spain acknowledges the crowd on the 18th green during Day Four of the Open de Espana at Centro Nacional de Golf on April 15, 2018 in Madrid, Spain. Get premium, high resolution news photos at Getty Images

There’s a change of tact this week as the European Tour drops down to Africa for the Trophee Hassan II, hosted by the Royal Golf Dar es Salam course in Rabat, Morocco.

We’ve had two editions of this event on the venue’s Red Course, and unfortunately for DFS gamers there has been little recurring evidence to help our draft this week. In 2016 the young Korean, Jeunghun Wang, scrapped his way to victory, and last year Edoardo Molinari ended a seven-year title drought with his win.

Curiously, the stats aren’t particularly revealing either. The two playoff protagonists in 2017, Molinari and Paul Dunne, missed lot of fairways despite not being the longest off the tee, but made up for that with sublime putting. Paul Waring, in third, was outstanding off the tee, found lots of greens but couldn’t make a putt. Victor Dubuisson, in T4, actually clubbed down (average drive length 274 yards) but made GIR and plenty of putts.

There is no single way to succeed here it seems, and maybe this week’s action will help to solidify what exactly it takes to win at Royal Golf Dar es Salam. Unfortunately, that means this week’s draft remains something of an exploratory affair.

There have been changes made to the course too ahead of this third hosting of the event. Some of the holes have been extended and the course remains a behemoth at 7,600 yards (remember, distance isn’t necessarily a factor), with greens enlarged and contours added. It may well be tricky, but perhaps less so than in recent years with more players finding the dancefloor; putting, however, will remain very much key.

Oh yes: and this is a Par 73 layout, which means FIVE Par 5s to attack. It will come as no surprise to learn that these were the easiest holes on the course last year, with Molinari playing them in -8 and Dunne in -11 of their final -9 total!

That said, these are strategic Par 5s where making birdie is more likely than finding the green in two and putting for eagle. Indeed, there were only five eagles made all tournament, which isn’t a huge amount in the grand scheme of things.

So, we are out on a limb to some extent this week, but who makes our draft?

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This Week’s Trophee Hassan II Fantasy Picks & Predictions

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This Week’s Trophee Hassan II Fantasy Picks

Andy Sullivan – $9,800 – Here’s a random statistic: eight of Andy Sullivan’s last twenty rounds have been 67 or better.

He is creating plenty of scoring opportunities then, and while he won’t find this layout to be quite so easy, he does have the confidence of knowing he is hitting the ball very nicely.

Excellent off the tee and ranking T4 for Putts Per Round at the Open de Espana, Sullivan’s T21 finish would have been so much better but for a final round of 73. For context, he played his middle 36 holes in -16.

A two-time winner in South Africa – a hint that he loves playing on Kikuyu grass, Sullivan was also a runner-up in this event, albeit on a different course, in 2014.

Pablo Larrazabal – $9,500 – The Spaniard showed some glimpses of fine form at his home Open de Espana last week, and that was a continuation of his excellent play of late.

He’d finished in the top-five in three of his previous four starts in Malaysia, Oman and India, and when we get down to brass tacks and draw up a shortlist of players who can genuinely contend – not just pay lip-service to the fact – Larrazabal is right up there.

A four-time European Tour winner, he produced some excellent golf after his friend, Sergio Garcia, won The Masters last year, and after watching Jon Rahm collect the Open de Espana trophy on Sunday he must have had a pang of competitive jealousy once again.

Robert Rock – $8,100 – There was another decent turn from the hat-less wonder, Robert Rock, in Spain last week.

Propped up by ranking fourth for Putts Per Round, the Englishman would finish T28 in a birdie-fest that does not really suit his natural, grinding game.

That was more in evidence at the Indian Open (T12) just prior and the Oman Open (T7) in February.

Rock has shown a penchant for playing good golf outside of Europe on numerous occasions; two of which have come here at this course in Morocco, where he has T3 and T7 finishes to his name.

Sebastian Gros – $7,300 – The Frenchman is playing some excellent golf at the minute, with a T12 finish at last week’s Open de Espana following hot on the heels of T4 and T25 returns from the Tshwane Open and Indian Open respectively.

From easy birdie-fests to tough examinations, Gros’ form is spanning ‘golf types’ and also traveling across continents too.

That’s no big surprise for something of a nomad who has served his time on the Challenge and Asian Tours, and for someone who has won in his native France and his nowhere-near-native Kazakhstan.

Check Gros’ course form here and you will see the uninspiring 46-47. Dig a bit deeper, and you will note he ranked first for Greens in Regulation last year and tenth the year prior. If he could just make some putts….

Julien Guerrier – $7,200 – A final round of 64 propelled Guerrier into the top-10 at the Open de Espana on Sunday; the second time in five starts that the Frenchman has been in the mix.

So, we could make an argument that he is undervalued by the salary-makers this week, and especially given how well he putted in Spain; ranking fourth for Putts Per Round.

Here’s a curious anomaly: Guerrier has actually won a golf event in Morocco, claiming the CDG Morocco on the Alps Tour as an amateur a decade ago. Good memories are often so important to these superstitious golfers….

Haydn Porteous – $6,700 – When you make your draft and pick a player from the low price points, you know there is an element of risk attached. That’s why they need plenty of upside to go with their risk of missing the weekend.

Porteous, a two-time European Tour winner with the last coming in 2017, ticks that box.

The good news is that he finished T13 here last year, has delivered top-30 finishes in two of his last five starts, and he’s usually an excellent putter to boot.

The downside is that he is as unpredictable as they come, and hasn’t played since early March.

So there’s an element of the risk and reward about Porteous in Morocco, but if he comes off then you might just have yourself a low-owned diamond in the rough.

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