European Tour Fantasy Golf Predictions – Nedbank Golf Challenge

2018 Nedbank Golf Challenge Preview

The European Tour enters its final throes for 2018, with this week’s Nedbank Challenge acting as the precursor to the DP World Tour Championship which will conclude the Rolex Series race next week.

The first in the trio of curtain-call events, the Turkish Airlines Open, was won by Justin Rose in the most heart-stopping fashion.

He went toe-to-toe with the talented young Haotong Li, who had a great chance to win outright on the 72nd hole. Li couldn’t take advantage, and he and Rose went off to replay the 18th in a play-off.

The Chinese ace played the perfect drive, hit a nice short iron into around ten feet and watched on as Rose missed his own birdie putt.

To the surprise of everyone, Li missed the putt which would have won the title, but then also curled a par putt wide from less than six feet.

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Rose had won, to his own astonishment, and climbed back up to number one in the world rankings.

TV viewers will be hoping for similar levels of excitement in South Africa this week, with the Nedbank Challenge hosted by the terrifyingly long Gary Player Country Club in Sun City.

It measures a whopping 7,800 yards for its Par 72, which makes it one of the longest courses used in world golf at elite level. The length is mitigated somewhat by the altitude of 3,700ft above sea level, but even so this event can become a real grind; reflected in the winning scores here, with only five players finishing double-digits under par in the last three years here.

It’s noticeable that only the classiest of operators thrive at Gary Player CC: Branden Grace, Alex Noren and Marc Leishman are the last three champions in this event, and with the great Player a keen advocate of premium ball-striking, its little wonder that the layout that bears his name plays in such a way.

This is your classic South African set-up, with Kikuyu grass fairways and small Bentgrass greens, which run rather quickly on the stimp. The rough on Kikuyu courses can be particularly nasty, and with plenty of sand around you can see why scoring here tends to be quite tough.

Hit it long and straight off the tee and make tons of GIR; there’s no other way to get the job done here in Sun City.

As such, who makes our draft for the Nedbank Challenge?

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This Week’s Nedbank Golf Challenge Fantasy Picks & Predictions

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This Week’s Nedbank Golf Challenge Fantasy Picks

Sergio Garcia – $11,500 – There was stacks of pressure on Sergio Garcia in his last start at the Valderrama Masters.

As host and the local favorite, Sergio must have been feeling the heat as he took to the first tee, but he delivered an absolute masterclass of ball-striking to win at a canter really.

He hasn’t played an awful lot of golf in South Africa in recent times, but as mentioned we expect the classiest of operators to rise to the top here. On that score, they don’t come much more elite than Sergio.

The 38-year-old is arguably a better bet than the likes of Rory McIlroy, who remains frustratingly inconsistent, Haotong Li, who will surely still be recovering from last week in Turkey, a largely out-of-form Branden Grace and the likes of Louis Oosthuizen, Lee Westwood and Shane Lowry, who simply don’t win often enough to warrant top billing here.

Lucas Bjerregaard – $8,900 – The Dane has recorded ten top-10 finishes on the European Tour this season; more than any other player.

It’s testament to how hard he is worked on his game, and in particular the ability to contend in different conditions, where changes to his natural style are required.

The Nedbank Challenge will allow him to do what he does best: open up his shoulders with driver in hand and send it as far as he can. Bjerregaard isn’t an out-and-out bomber – he finds plenty of fairways, and a season-long GIR count of some 74% proves that he can scramble well when the odd fairway is missed.

In his last seven starts he has won the Alfred Dunhill Links, finished second at the European Masters and ended up T5 in Turkey last week, so the form is there for another title challenge in Sun City.

Erik van Rooyen – $7,600 – It’s been a breakthrough season for Erik van Rooyen, who posted a pair of top-10s in European Tour events in South Africa earlier in the season. Since then, his form has, by and large, held firm.

Top fives at the Irish Open and Made in Denmark have come in recent months, as well as T11 at the KLM Open, and you suspect a return to his homeland will excite him further.

Opening and closing rounds of 67 at the Turkish Airlines Open will fly him there with good confidence, too.

Lucas Herbert – $7,500 – Like Van Rooyen, it’s been a revelatory campaign for Lucas Herbert, who has gone from being largely unknown on the continent to one of the most consistent performers around.

The Aussie has delivered a quintet of top-five finishes, including T3 at the British Masters in his penultimate start, and given his Australian upbringing he won’t mind if the wind blows.

The length won’t cause him any sleepless nights either: he averages 310 yards off the tee this season, and as long as he finds plenty of fairways along the way Herbert will be in a good place to attack these smaller-then-normal greens.

Mikko Korhonen – $7,200 – After winning his maiden European Tour event in the summer at the Shot Clock Masters, fallow times have perhaps understandably followed for Mikko Korhonen since.

But a solo third at the Valderrama Masters was followed by a decent enough effort at the Turkish Airlines Open, where he closed out 65-68 after a sluggish start.

The Finn generally plays well in South Africa – third at the Tshwane Open, T13 at the Joburg Open, T7 at the BMW SA Open last year – and with confidence in place he will fancy his chances of continuing his recent good form.

Darren Fichardt – $6,800 – In six visits to the Gary Player CC, Fichardt’s formline reads 6-12-5-10-18-MC, and for a guy at a sub $7,000 price we would be delighted to see a repeat of those efforts.

He has won twice in his South African homeland in European Tour events, and a top-10 at the BMW SA Open earlier in the year was further confirmation of that.

In the past few months there has been top-10s at the BMW PGA Championship and European Masters, and a trio of 68s in Turkey last week confirms that he is striking the ball nicely at the moment.

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