European Tour Fantasy Golf Predictions – 2017 UBS Hong Kong Open

2017 UBS Hong Kong Open Fantasy Preview

It may only be November, but the 2018 European Tour season starts right here in Hong Kong this week.

It’s an event which does have that ‘end of term’ feel about it, despite its scheduling, and you would be forgiven for thinking that the top three players here must be wishing they hadn’t signed up to play many months ago.

Tommy Fleetwood has just been crowned Race to Dubai champion for 2017, and after weeks of globe-trotting he must be desperate to get home and spend some time with his new-born son.

Tommy Fleetwood of England poses with the Race to Dubai trophy during…

Tommy Fleetwood of England poses with the Race to Dubai trophy during the final round of the DP World Tour Championship at Jumeirah Golf Estates on November 19, 2017 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates Get premium, high resolution news photos at Getty Images

Justin Rose, the Hong Kong Open champion in 2015, would presumably love some time off after failing to capitalize on a strong position in Dubai last week to wrench the R2D title from Fleetwood.

And Sergio Garcia, after his best year in golf following triumphs at the Masters and his home Valderrama Masters, would surely love to be celebrating Thanksgiving for the first time with his pregnant American wife Angela.

So we might insinuate that this year’s Hong Kong Open is a wide open race, and it proved to be so last year when 500/1 jolly Sam Brazel defied his world ranking of 480 to take the title from Rafa Cabrera-Bello, who led by three strokes at the 36-hole mark and was five clear of the group at T3.

Our host venue is Fanling, a supremely short (6,700 yard, Par 70) and tight stretch that is tree-lined and wickedly dog-legged in places. It is the true plodders course, with strategic management key, and it is no surprise to learn that former champions here include Padraig Harrington, Ian Poulter, and Miguel Angel-Jimenez, who incredibly has taken the spoils on four occasions!

It is perhaps more surprising to see the likes of Rory McIlroy and Scott Hend win on a tight set-up, but both ranked very highly for GIR and made putts, which is essential in a winning run here. Any prospective champion will need to scramble well too, with missed fairways almost a certainty.

Instinctively we might be leaning towards an Asian Tour member or two, given their experience in this part of the world, but actually the last two renewals have been dominated by European and traveling PGA TOUR pros.

Instead, look for some interesting course correlations. Jimenez offers up our best angles, given that he has also won at the tree-lined Wentworth and Crans-sur-Sierre, the hosts of the BMW PGA Championship and European Masters respectively. Even Hend has performed well at both venues, with Colin Montgomerie winning at all three.

So who gets the nod and makes our draft this week?

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This Week’s UBS Hong Kong Open Fantasy Picks & Predictions

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This Week’s UBS Hong Kong Open Fantasy Picks

Matt Fitzpatrick – $10,500 – Of the top-raked players, it is only Matt Fitzpatrick who holds any real appeal.

The Englishman has played in seven of the last eight tournaments – so fatigue is a concern, especially with the amount of traveling the players have been doing, but his form has been so good he is simply impossible to ignore.

All of those seven efforts have yielded top-15 finishes, and he led last week’s DP World Tour Championship at the halfway stage, so his ball striking cannot be questioned.

You fancy that Fitzpatrick will make short and tight events like these his speciality in the coming years, and already he’s making his mark: he finished third here in 2015, and has bagged top-20s at Wentworth and Crans – wining here just a matter of weeks ago.

The Sheffield man has already proven himself to be a relatively prolific winner on tour, and he must fancy his chances of extending his trophy collection this week.

Rafa Cabrera-Bello – $9,100 – As mentioned, Cabrera-Bello really ought to have won this event 12 months ago. Clear by three at the halfway stage and tied with eventual winner Brazel after 54 holes, the Spaniard should have made his class count.

But he’s often had a problem getting over the winning line, so you wonder if his victory at the Scottish Open earlier this season may just open the door to further, more comfortable victories.

He’s been in decent enough form in the past few months, finishing T4 at the British Open and T5 at the WGC HSBS Champions event roughly a month ago. And while his T21 at the World Tour Championship last week was a so-so return, his Saturday round of 66 was sublime.

RCB has a habit of playing well in the Southern Hemisphere, so let’s see if he can maintain that record this week.

Paul Waring – $7,700 – It’s been a pleasing return to form for Wring, who has shown his mettle in the past few weeks.

He grinded well at the Valderrama Masters (T30), navigated the tight, tree-lined fairways of the Turkish Open (T14), hung in there in some tough conditions at the Nedbank Challenge (T19) and despite finishing halfway up the leaderboard at the World Tour Championship, caught the eye with a final round of 67.

Excellent from tee to green, typically, Waring’s game is well suited to these tight tests, ad having finished T7 here 12 months ago he will be relishing the chance to go well once again.

Marcus Fraser – $7,500 – Marcus Fraser’s course form makes him hard to ignore here, and an outstanding round of 62 in his penultimate start at the Italian Open makes him a no-brainer pick here.

It’s easy to forget that the Aussie is a three-time European Tour winner, and a short, fiddly event like this in Asia is surely his best opportunity to add to that collection.

Nine trips to Fanling have yielded five top-10 finishes, and in his penultimate start a T5 finish at the Italian Open – played at Golf Club Milano, which is said to be very similar to Wentworth – has set the scene for further success.

David Lipsky – $7,300 – After a few attempts, Lipsky finally cracked the Fanling code with a T5 finish here 12 months ago, and a similar sort of effort is well within the American’s grasp.

He’s been struggling for form since the summer, in truth, but a T27 return from the Turkish Airlines Open suggested green shoots of recovery, and they bloomed last time out at the World Tour Championship where his Saturday 64 was a sight to behold.

For a player who has delivered eleven top-10 finishes since the start of the 2016 season, and who appears to be returning to his best form, this price tag is rather generous.

Alexander Bjork – $6,900 – It’s been a decent enough first season as a European Tour pro for Alexander Bjork, and some of the Swede’s best performances have come at our correlating tracks at Wentworth (T14) and Crans (T16).

He also opened with a round of 64 at the Italian Open, and hung with the big boys at the World Tour Championship to finish T17.

Bjork is one of the best scramblers on the European Tour, and with his short but accurate driving you would contest that if he putts well he can go very close in Hong Kong this week.

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