European Tour Fantasy Golf Predictions – Italian Open

2018 Italian Open Preview

They say that in life, timing is everything. And it would appear everything is falling into place in a timely fashion for Francesco Molinari right now.

He was neck-and-neck with Rory McIlroy in last week’s BMW PGA Championship at the 54-hole stage, and playing in the final group most fancied the Irishman to take the spoils ahead of the Italian, who notoriously has a problem getting over the line.

But this time it was Molinari who had his way, sealing the deal with a flourish to land a two-stroke victory.

Francesco Molinari of Italy is sprayed with champagne after victory…

Francesco Molinari of Italy is sprayed with champagne after victory in the final round of the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth on May 27, 2018 in Virginia Water, England. Get premium, high resolution news photos at Getty Images

That was the first Rolex Series event of the season, and the second follows immediately this week: the Italian Open, another lucrative payday but for Molinari a chance to secure some more national hero status. He is a two-time winner of his home tournament, and it is an event in which he clearly thrives in front of his adoring countrymen.

Mind you, ‘Frankie’ and the rest of the field will have a different test to overcome this week. After three years as host Gold Club Milano has been jettisoned in favor of the Gardagolf club in Brescia, located not a million miles from the Swiss border. This layout hasn’t been used in a European Tour level event since 2003, and so unfortunately we are fumbling around in the dark somewhat when making our draft this week.

The usual language to describe the course is on point: beautiful olive groves, sweeping fairways and views of Lake Garda all get a mention, and the layout does look rather picturesque in the variety of images available online. There is a certain depth to the trees that line the fairways, while water hazards cut into various holes at points which suggest that accuracy and ball striking could be the order of the day.

As for actual reference points, the course will play at around 7,201 yards for its Par 71, with just three par 5s to play with. And Golf Magazine has labelled the second hole as one of the 500 best on the planet. A par 3 played from an elevated tee box, the green is bordered by a lake and a stunning flowerbed. For these players it shouldn’t provide too many problems, but it is certainly an aesthetically-pleasing stretch.

Otherwise, we have very little to go on of any relevance. But one snippet that we must of course keep in mind is that this is a Rolex Series event. There’s a massive paycheck up for grabs and stacks of Race to Dubai points, and if we cycle through the list of most recent Rolex winners on the European Tour – Molinari, Jon Rahm, Branden Grace, Tommy Fleetwood, Justin Rose, Tyrrell Hatton, Rafa Cabrera-Bello and Alex Noren – we note that only classy sorts need apply this week.

With that in mind, who makes our draft for the Italian Open this week?

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This Week’s Italian Open Fantasy Picks & Predictions

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This Week’s Italian Open Fantasy Picks

Ian Poulter – $9,900 – We drafted Poults in our line-up for the BMW PGA Championship last week, and were left squirming a little after an opening round of 74 left him on the brink of sitting out the weekend.

But he gutsed it out and compiled a fine second round of 67 to make the cut and give himself a look at the weekend.

For a man who has struggled, to put it mildly, at Wentworth in the past, 72-68 wasn’t a bad way to finish and confirms that Poulter’s game is in really good shape right now.

As we know, Poulter is a man who understands the importance of the occasion, and he will be desperate to get back into the winner’s enclosure on European soil. He wants the notoriety of winning a big event as much as he wants the cash, and another nudge to the Ryder Cup selectors – Thomas Bjorn is playing in Italy this week – won’t go amiss either.

Poults is a man who barely misses an opportunity, so expect him to make hay under the Italian sun this week.

Matt Fitzpatrick – $9,600 – At the age of 23, Fitzpatrick already has four European Tour wins to his name, and so it is almost certain he will be added to the ‘classy operator’ category in the fullness of time.

Indeed, having appeared in a Ryder Cup and won high profile events like the British Masters and the money-spinning DP World Tour Championship, we can say he is a player for now as well as the future.

The Sheffield ace has won in neighboring Switzerland and played some fine stuff at Wentworth last week, with opening and closing 67s helping him to a T8 finish.

In interview over in America, Fitzpatrick had hinted that his game was coming together again after a slow start to 2018, so perhaps the seeds of improvement will be sewn in Italy this week.

Erik Van Rooyen – $7,900 – When we were looking at images and video of Gardagolf, the first comparable courses that came to mind, bizarrely, were some of the tree-lined parkland layouts in South Africa.

Glendower, home to the BMW SA Open, and Pretoria GC, host of the Tshwane Open, appear to be obvious reference points this week, and so the South Africans should feel comfortable enough this week.

Especially those that are in form, and Erik Van Rooyen is playing some fine golf at present.

A winner on the Sunshine Tour, EVR tried his luck on the Challenge Tour last season and passed with full colors; earning his European Tour card with the minimum of fuss.

Most impressive was his T20 at Wentworth last week; the first big event he has played outside of his homeland. Another tree-lined affair, he has also bagged a top-10 at the aforementioned Pretoria, so there’s no reason why he can’t go well again this week.

Sam Horsfield – $7,400 – We have mentioned that the onus is on drafting premium quality players this week, but there are certainly some youngsters in the field who could one day go on to earn that tag.

Indeed, perhaps in the future we will reference the Italian Open as the point where the prodigiously talented Sam Horsfield made his breakthrough.

He was certainly in the thick of it at Wentworth, sitting T2 and T3 at the 36 and 54-hole marks respectively. A closing 73 did not help matters, but Horsfield can reflect on a job well done in what is likely to have been a real learning experience for the youngster.

Second at Pretoria earlier in the season, the 21-year-old is likely to experience some peaks and troughs in these formative years in his career, but right now the going seems rather good for this seriously exciting talent.

Matteo Manassero – $7,200 – There are two players in the field this week who call Gardagolf home: Matteo Manassero and Nino Bertasio. Of the pair, it is Manassero who surely offers more appeal.

After a ludicrously good early career on the European Tour, Matteo’s progress has stalled in the past few years, but anybody who can win at Wentworth – as he did in 2013 – can be tagged with the classy ball-striker tag for time immemorial.

This season the Italian has been solid, rather than spectacular, but he is making cuts and at a $7,200 price point we can’t ask much more than that in an event where we expect the big names to flourish.

Manassero has made the weekend in each of his last six starts, with the highlights being a T20 return on home soil at the Rocco Forte Open and T27 in the BMW last week, which included rounds of 66 and 68.

Jacques Kruyswijk – $6,900 – We’ll refer back to that South African narrative for our last pick; another young ace who looks to have the makings of a regular winner on tour.

Extremely good off the tee, where he has gained more than +0.5 strokes on the field this season, Kruyswijk has the straight-shooting game that will come as no surprise to somebody who was raised in Pretoria and who calls Centurion club his home course.

In his last four starts he has missed a cut in Morocco but otherwise compiled finishes of T9 (Open de Espana), T14 (Rocco Forte) and T20 (BMW PGA Championship), and so this is one young South African whose best golf travels across the continents.

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