Fantasy Golf Picks & Predictions – 2016 Nordea Masters

Fantasy Golf Picks and Predictions for the 2016 Nordea Masters

2016 Nordea Masters Fantasy Preview

Following what many consider the flagship event on the European Tour (the BMW PGA Championship), the players will now head to Malmo, Sweden for the Nordea Masters; most often known as the Scandinavian Masters.  The event was first established in 1991 and is played at PGA Sweden National; a par-72, 7,390-yard course which has allowed for some big scoring in the past few years.

Last year it was Alexander Noren who took home the trophy in his home country for the second time after first doing so in 2011.  Over the two victories, Noren was able to beat out his closest competitor by a total of 11 strokes, with last year’s coming by four over Soren Kjelsdsen.  Although he had another large margin of victory in 2015, his winning mark was actually the lowest since 2010 as the average score for the victor here from 2011 to 2014 was nearly 18 shots better than par.  Noren was the fifth player from Sweden to win here since the event’s inception in 1991 and was the fifth player to win multiple times.

Noren will once again be one of the favorites in the field this week, but will have some tough competition in the No. 6 ranked golfer in the world and fellow Swedish-born player; Henrik Stenson.  Stenson has been great in this tourney, securing a runner-up (2005) and a fifth place finish (2014) as he now attempts to win his first professional competition since 2014.  Also joining them as a top name will be OWGR No. 35 Lee Westwood who sits just one spot behind Stenson in the Race to Dubai at seventh place.  The only other player from the Race to Dubai top-10 will be No. 10 Rikard Karlberg while Soomin Lee, Scott Hend, Bradley Dredge, Andrew Johnston, and Jeunghun Wang round out players joining from the top-20.

With DFS sites like DraftKings adding the European Tour contests to their slate of games recently, it’s important to become better acclimated with some of the lesser known golfers that make their living overseas.

Here are our favorite picks in each salary tier to look into when making up your lineups this week as you go for some big money.

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Nordea Masters Fantasy Picks and Predictions

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Nordea Masters Fantasy Picks

Top-Tier – Henrik Stenson – $12,400 – Stenson is one of the best players in the world as evidenced by his ranking of sixth in the OWGR, but he has failed to win much of late and has not done so in Europe since November of 2014 and on the PGA TOUR since late 2013.  That being said, he seems to always be in contention and is one of the most reliable players to at least be near the top of the leaderboard when all is said-and-done.  In 2016 he has split time between the two major tours, currently ranking sixth in the Race to Dubai and 36^th in the FedExCup standings.  In the five outings that count for the European TOUR, Stenson has done no worse than 28^th, and in the three that are not also on the PGA TOUR, he has earned three top-sixes; including coming in as the runner-up at the Nedbank Golf Challenge.  He ranks 6^th on the TOUR with a 70.3 stroke average and fifth in GIR (75.9%) while also dominating with his putter (1.677 putts per GIR).  Many people will be going with the Swedish-born player this week and he will be highly owned in both cash and tournament games.

Mid-Tier – Bradley Dredge – $8,800 – Dredge’s two European TOUR victories came back in 2006 and 2003, but the 42-year-old from Whales has been tearing it up in 2016 and has flown up to 91^st in the OWGR after beginning the year in 221^st.  Prior to last week’s 82^nd in the BMW Championship, Dredge had done no worse than 35^th in any of his previous seven events played and was able to get into the top-seven three times.  Although he did not take home any trophies, he did make a Sunday push at the Irish Open with a final day 66, eventually coming in a tie for second behind Rory McIlroy.  His 70.33 scoring average has him in the top-10 as he comes in as one of the hottest putters on TOUR, averaging a mere 1.732 putts per GIR (21^st on TOUR) and 28 putts per round (6^th on TOUR).  With the way Dredge is playing, it would not be a surprise to see him surprise many and come away with his third career victory before season’s end.

Mid-Tier – Fabrizio Zanotti – $7,800 – Zanotti was the first Paraguayan to win on the European TOUR when he took home the hardware at the BMW International Open back in 2014, and while he has never been able to win another event, he has put together a solid 2016 campaign and flirted with doing so.  He has four top-25s in his last seven outings, including a ninth at the Volvo China Open to start the month of May and a seventh at the BMW PGA Championship just last week.  Zanotti is accurate off the tee (70.7%, 9^th on TOUR) and as a result has been able to hit GIR 69.7% of the time (36^th on TOUR) leading to some of his nice finishes.  There is a lot of good that you will see from Zanotti, but he is still pretty inconsistent with four finishes of 85^th or worse, and should be looked at more for tournaments than in cash games.

Mid-Tier – Jorge Campillo – $7,500 – Campillo continues to look for his first professional victory and has certainly come close a few times with two runner-ups and a third since 2012.  This year he once again nearly took home the top prize after shooting 12-under at the Maybank Championship Malaysia.  His four rounds of sub-70 golf earned him his best finish of 2016, a tie for 4^th, and since he has had just one outing in seven events with a finish outside of 38^th.  In last week’s BMW PGA Championship, the 29-year-old Spaniard was able to come in a tie for 15^th as he kept his scoring average under 71 (70.98, 17^th on TOUR).  As Campillo continues to play there seems to be more confidence in his game and he will look to build on his nice outing against some of the best last week as he takes on the field at the Nordea Masters.

Sleeper – Raphael Jacquelin – $6,300 – Jacquelin has four European TOUR victories in his long career, with his last coming in his home country of Spain in 2013 at the Open de Espana.  He has not exactly torn it up this year, but does have two top-25s in his last five events and was eight-under-par in three rounds of the Irish Open, being hampered by a Saturday 79 which brought him down to a final of 23^rd in the standings.  His putting is what will set him apart this week as he ranks in the top-60 in both putts per GIR (1.762, 59^th on TOUR) and total putts per round (28.7, 23^rd on TOUR). There is no real chance of Jacquelin winning this week, but if you are looking to stack up on studs for a cash team, he should fit in nicely.

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