European Tour Fantasy Golf Predictions – NBO Oman Open

2018 NBO Oman Open Fantasy Preview

After a brief sojourn to Australian for the fun but slightly bizarre Perth Super Sixes, the European Tour heads back to the Middle East for its first ever visit to Oman.

The coastal gulf country is part of the burgeoning golf community in the desert, and so it was only natural for the Tour to follow the big bucks and set-up the inaugural hosting of the Oman Open.

Conditions will be hot and humid, although that will be no problem for those who engaged in the Desert Swing just a couple of weeks ago.

This Al Mouj course is completely new to us and pretty much everyone on Tour – although it has hosted the NBO Grand Finals on the Challenge Tour for the past few years. How important that course form will be, despite its second-tier status, remains to be seen.

Joost Luiten of The Netherlands plays his second shot on the par 4,…

Joost Luiten of The Netherlands plays his second shot on the par 4, 17th hole during the first round of the 2018 Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship at the Abu Dhabi Golf Club on January 18, 2018 in Abu… Get premium, high resolution news photos at Getty Images

What we have here is a sort of Links course in the desert: it is located on the coast, so a warm and possibly wild wind will sweep in off the Indian Ocean, although with a distinct lack of trees on the course – there is just one, apparently! – the players at least have one less thing to worry about. Not that this is a hazard-free zone though with sand dunes, bunkers and water hazards all playing their part.

The layout was designed by Greg Norman and features, in the European Tour website’s words, ‘massive’ greens. So keeping the ball in play off the tee and putting well could be the key factors this week.

We have three clear favorites in Alex Levy, Shubhankar Sharma and Andy Sullivan, and a case can be made for all. Levy has been playing well of late but has little Links form to speak of, Sharma has, incredibly, won four times in his last 12 starts worldwide, but bizarrely we still don’t really know how good he is. Sullivan is a gritty little performer, but with one top-ten finish in his last nine starts is he worthy of $11,000 billing?

Here are six fantasy roster plays plays who could well come up with the goods this week:

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This Week’s NBO Oman Open Fantasy Picks & Predictions

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This Week’s NBO Oman Open Fantasy Picks

Joost Luiten – $10,000 – We can save a few dollars on our salary cap without necessarily losing any quality by drafting Joost Luiten, a five-time European Tour winner with plenty of noteworthy form.

The Dutchman claimed his first title in the Middle East, and has played well in the Qatar Masters (T13 in 2016) and the DP World Tour Championship, which is hosted at a Greg Norman layout at the Jumeirah Estates in Dubai.

Luiten has twice won his home KLM Open, which is played at a Links-style course, and has also won in Wales at a typically Celtic stretch.

So the past history is there and so is the current form. Luiten struck the ball beautifully at the Maybank Championship two weeks ago, ranking inside the top-10 for both Total Driving and GIR, and so there is plenty of upside in swerving the ‘big names’ for the rather more modest Dutchman.

Jorge Campillo – $8,800 – Campillo had his first flirtation with winning a European Tour level title at the Maybank Championship as he shared the 54-hole lead with Dylan Frittelli.

That is a gut check for players of all ages and experience levels, and the Spaniard stood up to the task well: carding a final round of -4 which featured an eagle, three birdies and a single bogey. Only the brilliance of Sharma prevented Campillo from entering the winner’s circle.

That fine performance followed T12 and T14 returns at the BMW SA Open and the Abu Dhabi Championship, so all is well in the Spaniard’s camp.

Campillo boasts top-10s at two Greg Norman layouts (Jumeirah and Royal el Prat), has played well in Doha (T13, Qatar Masters 2017) and doesn’t seem to mind Links golf (T8, Scottish Open 2016). That’s plenty of boxes ticked.

Richie Ramsay – $7,900 – Another who catches the eye this week is Richie Ramsay, who has enjoyed a fine Desert Swing.

Okay, so a formline of 62-6-40 doesn’t necessarily suggest as much, but the Scot ranked second for GIR in Abu Dhabi and fifteenth for the same in Dubai, and that as a very basic metric at least offers some guidance as to how well he is striking the ball.

With very little to go on this week we are making a big deal of the Links angle at Al Mouj, but with its coastal location and tree-less layout it is a simple leap of faith to suggest those at home on the Links should prosper.

As a native Scot, naturally Ramsay appeals on this front. He was second behind Jon Rahm in the Irish Open last summer and has recorded countless top-10s on Scottish Links.

He even finished T15 at Greg Norman’s Royal el Prat layout in 2015.

Andrew Johnston – $7,600 – ‘Beef’ has really been racking up the air miles early on in the year as he seeks a return to the kind of form that saw him win at Valderrama in 2016. It’s kind possible that the bearded one has an eye on a Ryder Cup spot too.

His determination and re-focus after a fallow 2017 appears to be paying dividends. Johnston has been excellent off the tee in the Desert Swing, and ranked fourth for GIR in Abu Dhabi – a foundation for his T9 finish.

He missed the cut at the Perth Super 6 event, but the die was cast there when he made a nine on the Par 4 second; in typically amused fashion, Beef shrugged that of and played the rest of his first round in -4.

Matt Southgate – $7,200 – If its Links specialists you’re looking for this week then they don’t come much better than Matt Southgate.

The Brit finished sixth in the British Open Championship and T2 in the Irish Open in 2017, as well as T4 in Ireland a year prior to that. His first tournament win came in the amateur St Andrew Links Trophy in 2010.

He’s actually shown a penchant for golf in the Middle East too, ranking third for GIR at the Dubai Desert Classic just a few weeks ago.

You may recall Southgate going well at the DAP Championship on the Web.com Tour last fall, before he received a four-stroke penalty for failing to replace his ball after it was moved by an errant leaf!

Richard McEvoy – $6,800 – For a player at this kind of price point making the cut is a decent return on investment, and so take the plunge on a Links specialist that is playing some decent golf of late.

Ignoring the missed weekend in Perth, Richard McEvoy has made the cut in his last three strokeplay events and two of those are of relevance: T32 at the coastal Mauritius Open, and T30 on this very course in the Challenge Tour’s NBO Grand Final.

The Englishman has two wins on that tour to his name, and the latter of those came on the Links in the Scottish Hydro Challenge just last year. Has top-20s in the Mauritius Open 2016 and the KLM Open of the same year.

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