European Tour Fantasy Golf Predictions – Sky Sports British Masters

2018 Sky Sports British Masters Preview

We were around half-a-round of seeing something rather extraordinary on Sunday.

Tyrell Hatton, going for a ‘three-peat’ in the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship, was cruising along and four shots clear of the leaderboard ahead of the business end of the tournament.

But whether the weight of history – he’s have been joining a club featuring Tiger Woods and Nick Faldo as European Tour hat-trick heroes – or the howling gale got to him is anybody’s guess, as Hatton played the back nine in +4 to allow Lucas Bjerregaard to sneak a win through the back door.

The Tour stays on UK soil this week for the revamped British Masters, an event which had disappeared off the face off the earth until 2015, when broadcaster Sky Sports took over sponsorship rights and injected some pizazz into proceedings.

They have introduced hosts for each edition, and following in the footsteps of Ian Poulter, Luke Donald and Lee Westwood in 2018 will be Justin Rose, who will lead the way at Walton Heath in Surrey.

The world number one will be looking to improve on the hosts’ run of form which reads 15-MC-33, although he will be up against a tough field which features the likes of Ryder Cup teammates Tommy Fleetwood, Francesco Molinari and Thorbjorn Olesen, as well as Matt Fitzpatrick, Shane Lowry and last week’s winner Bjerregaard.

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The action will unfold on the Old Course at Walton Heath; a layout once described by Jack Nicklaus as ‘wonderfully pure’. It looks like your typically British heathland course, although it is surprisingly exposed with minimal tree coverage.

The Old Course will play at around 7,400 yards for its Par 72, and with the rough said to be deep, tangly and best avoided, it might be worth siding with the plotters over the bombers.

The UK tens be peppered with winds and rain at this time of year, and that will lead to some soft conditions. That said, the greens are quick and offer a number of approach options including bump-and-run; it should be a Links-ish style test given its exposure.

Indeed, that theme is enhanced by results taken from the US Open sectional qualifying tournament, which Walton Heath hosts each year on its Old and New Courses. Take a look at the list of qualifiers in 2018: Matt Southgate, Richie Ramsay, Andrew Johnston, Thorbjorn Olesen, Matt Wallace, Tom Lewis, Ryan Fox and Scott Gregory. All are comfortable on the Links, and it seems to be a comparison worthy of further inspection.

We should be in for a cracking week then, so who makes our draft for the British Masters?

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This Week’s Sky Sports British Masters Fantasy Picks & Predictions

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This Week’s Sky Sports British Masters Fantasy Picks

Francesco Molinari – $11,200 – When ‘handicapping’ the field at the Alfred Dunhill last week, we pondered whether the Ryder Cup stars would have some kind of hangover when returning to the day job.

But it didn’t appear so as Hatton and Fleetwood both challenged for honors and Brooks Koepka and Tony Finau both showed nicely.

And so any reservations about drafting Molinari, who will rekindle his bromance with Fleetwood this week, can be kicked to the kerb.

The Italian, who won his first major on UK soil this summer, is also a winner of the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth, so this is a stretch of land that holds plenty of good memories.

He will drive the ball long and straight, a genuine advantage at Walton Heath, and if the putter is behaving – as it was at Le Golf National, that’s for sure – then there’s no reason why he can’t add a fourth title this season to his collection.

Haotong Li – $9,000 – In the past few weeks Li has been showing some outstanding form, and that bodes well ahead of a trip to a layout he clearly enjoys.

A round of 66 headlined his effort at the KLM Open three weeks ago, and confirmed that the young Chinese star’s game was heading in the right direction.

He followed up with three rounds of 68 or better in Portugal, and just last week at the Alfred Dunhill Championship he was firing a closing 66 to climb to T5 on the leaderboard.

Trends are nice and upward and so too is the enjoyment of Walton Heath; Li qualified for the US Open here in 2017, and mentioned on social media that he had practised on the Old Course ahead of last week’s trip to Scotland.

Matt Wallace – $8,500 – We’re not quite sure why the sportsbooks, and thus the DFS salary-makers, continue to underestimate Wallace, but it bodes well for those that draft him.

The Englishman has won three times this year, and was surely just a short hair away from being selected as a Ryder Cup wildcard by Thomas Bjorn. Given his relatively lowly salary of $8,500 this week, it’s something of a head-scratcher.

He has twice qualified for the US Open through qualifying at Walton Heath, and his current form is good too with the odd errant round preventing him from progress.

Wallace opened up with 64-67 at the Portugal Masters in his penultimate start, and he found himself in contention at halfway at the Alfred Dunhill – leading after the first round.

Brandon Stone – $7,400 – Another who seems to be underpriced this week is Brandon Stone, whose trajectory is unmistakably upward.

A winner of the Scottish Open in the summer, the South African has since followed up with a T12 return from the PGA Championship and T10 at last week’s Alfred Dunhill.

He clearly loves Links golf, and has a penchant for Walton Heath too – blitzing through US Open qualifying here in 2017.

Lucas Herbert – $7,400 – The Australian looks primed for big things in the coming years, and a windy test of ball striking might just be where his strengths lie.

Herbert found 81% of fairways at the Alfred Dunhill last week – astonishing given the ferocious wind and the fact his average length was 312 yards! He will need to be on point with the big stick this week, but that is confidence personified.

In finding 79% of greens too, it’s unsurprising that he finished an impressive T7 in Scotland.

The 22-year-old gained some key experience when leading the Portugal Masters with a round to play, and he will surely join the winner’s circle soon enough. A good run at the British Masters will be another step in the right direction.

Darren Fichardt – $6,500 – Big spending elsewhere leaves us with little in the kitty for our sixth player, but there is no concern in drafting Darren Fichardt.

On the contrary, the South African is playing some good stuff at the moment, with an excellent second round of 63 at the Alfred Dunhill Links – the joint-best of the day – following a top-10 at the European Masters just a few weeks prior.

Fichardt also finished inside the top-10 at Wentworth for the BMW PGA Championship and has won in Ireland before, so he tends to enjoy his trips to the UK.

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