European Tour Fantasy Golf Picks & Predictions – Nedbank Golf Challenge

Fantasy Golf Picks and Predictions for the 2017 Nedbank Golf Challenge

2017 Nedbank Golf Challenge Fantasy Preview

One would assume that 99% of the players on the European Tour are sick of the sight of Justin Rose.

The Olympic champion has won both of the last two events on the tour despite going into the final round with a deficit to overcome. He surpassed the faltering Dustin Johnson at the WGC HSBC Champions event in China, and last week at the Turkish Airlines Open he overcame a two-shot deficit at the 54-hole stage to win by a single stroke and climb to the top of the Race to Dubai standings.

The good news for all concerned is that he has decided to take this week off!

Justin Rose of England holds the trophy after his victory during the…

Justin Rose of England holds the trophy after his victory during the final round of the Turkish Airlines Open at the Regnum Carya Golf & Spa Resort on November 5, 2017 in Antalya, Turkey. Get premium, high resolution news photos at Getty Images

So we head to South Africa for the second of three Finals Series tournaments, and what should be the pinnacle of the European Tour season is turned into something of a farce with the appearance of the likes of Branden Grace, Louis Oosthuizen, and Charl Schwartzel in the field; three players who have barely featured in tour events this season.

Could you imagine the PGA TOUR letting a random player participate in one of the FedExCup events, just because they were local? It makes a mockery of the whole point of earning ranking points if an ‘outsider’ can swan in and win the purse.

Rant aside, it’s an intriguing event this week, played at one of the longest courses on the planet: the 7,831 yard behemoth at the Gary Player Country Club in Sun City.

This is a parkland stretch made up of native Kikuyu grass on tee boxes, fairways and rough, and Bentgrass to populate the greens.

It’s a long course and one that is tough to score on, with just 14 of the 70-man field finishing under par last year. Alex Noren’s 2016 winning mark of -14 is slightly misleading too, as he won in the end by some six shots!

It usually takes classy types who can hit it long and straight off the tee to win here, with major winners Danny Willett (2014) and Martin Kaymer (2012) former champions here alongside the excellent Noren, Marc Leishman (2015) and Thomas Bjorn (2013).

With all of the above in mind, who are we drafting at this week’s Nedbank Challenge? Let’s have a look…

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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

Francesco Molinari – $10,000 – The Italian is, by all accounts, one of the best drivers on the planet. He ranked ninth for Total Driving during the main PGA TOUR season of 2017, and that is naturally the platform for some outstanding performances.

It’s been a good year for Molinari, who went close to landing his first major title at the PG Championship in finishing T2, as well as performing very nicely in another big one – T6 at THE PLAYERS Championship.

Oddly, one of his best efforts this year came recently enough at the Italian Open, where he faced the dual pressure of being home favorite and defending champion. Molinari would have been disappointed not to win of course, but T6 represented a fine effort nonetheless.

Classy sorts tend to thrive at the Gary Player club, and although Molinari has not played here since 2013 we can’t write him off on that basis alone: the last four champions here – Noren, Leishman, Willett ,and Bjorn – all won on debut!

Tommy Fleetwood – $9,200 – The historical stats suggest that quality ball-striking from tee to green is essential to win this Nedbank Challenge, and few can boast a skillset quite like Tommy Fleetwood in this area.

He’s had a habit of disappointing us at times this season and that’s due to his errant putting stroke, but make no mistake if he heats up Fleetwood will take some stopping here.

Hitting greens is essential at Gary Player, and the Englishman has ranked third for GIR on his last two trips to the course, so no problem there. He also ranked joint first for our own tee-to-green stat – a mangling of Driving Accuracy, Distance and GIR – at the Turkish Airlines Open last week.

Added impetus comes in the form of the Race to Dubai standings, where has just been usurped by Rose’s brilliance at the head of the rankings. But with Rose out of town here, Fleetwood has a fantastic opportunity to cash in.

His record at Gary Player – 14-21-14 – is ready to be improved upon.

Shane Lowry – $8,800 – The Irishman co-led the Turkish Airlines Open last week after 54 holes, and while he couldn’t quite convert for a fourth career title his T8 finish continued a fine run of five top-30 returns in his last six starts.

A key feature of that run has been his brilliance on approach, but on a course like Gary Player where Lowry can open up his shoulders off the tee he should thrive: he ranked eighth on the PGA TOUR for Total Driving during the 2017 season.

As mentioned, it is the quality performers in the field that tend to flourish in this event, and after winning the WGC Bridgestone Invitational and finishing second in the US Open in his young career already, we can surely file Lowry in that category.

Ross Fisher – $8,500 – One swallow doesn’t make a summer, and so we’re happy to overlook Ross Fisher’s poor week at the HSBC Champions despite his usual excellent form in China.

Instead, let’s focus on the good times – as hopefully he is: the five-time European Tour winner actually held the clubhouse lead on the Sunday of both of his previous pair of starts at the Italian Open and Alfred Dunhill Links.

As a long-time member of the European Tour, Fisher has played plenty of golf in South Africa and won the Tshwane Open in 2014 – so we’ve no qualms about his suitability for playing on the Kikuyu – and actually his record in this event of a trio of top-fives in five visits speaks volumes. He actually led this tournament in both 2015 and 16 after the first round, too.

Lucas Bjerregaard – $7,300 – It was just five starts ago that Lucas Bjerregaard claimed the first European Tour title of his career at the Portugal Masters, and now the afterglow has worn off he can set his sights on adding to that collection.

Events like this where the Dane can really open up off the tee suit, and this season in finding nearly 60% of fairways at an average clip of 307 yards a go suggests his Total Driving game is right up there.

The difference now is that he has a winner’s mentality – how far can he run with it?

Paul Waring – $7,200 – A T14 effort at the Turkish Airlines Open for Paul Waring may have passed plenty by, but those of us who monitor the stats will have noticed that he ranked joint fifth for tee-to-green striking and thirteenth for Putts per Round, so it was a decent week all-round for the Englishman.

He returns to South Africa in confident this week then, and that bodes well given that this country was the location for his best performance of the season. On the lengthy East Course at the Royal Johannesburg Club, Waring finished T2 in the Joburg Open and may have gone on to win if the event wasn’t culled at the 54-hole stage due to heavy rain.

Long off the tee, Waring is enjoying his best season as far as stroke average is concerned, and there’s no reason why he can’t continue his fine form from Turkey here.

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