Fantasy Golf Predictions – Volvo China Open

European Tour Fantasy Golf Picks and Predictions for the Volvo China Open

The Volvo China Open Fantasy Preview

The second leg of the European Tour’s China swing takes place this week on the back of an excellent tournament at Shenzhen last time out.  There two of the very best players in the field duked out a playoff hole, with the classy Bernd Wiesberger seeing off our pick Tommy Fleetwood to claim a fourth tour title and his first in nearly two years.

The Austrian appears destined for better things and a tilt at the PGA TOUR beckons for this smooth operator.  Just look at the composure he showed in the playoff: his tee shot landed a matter of inches from the water hazard, and yet he dug out a superb iron shot, nailed a knee-knocker of a putt, and claimed the title.  It was only the third birdie made on the eighteenth hole throughout the whole of the fourth round!

Wiesberger is hanging around for this, the Volvo China Open at the Topwin Golf and Country Club in Beijing.  And why wouldn’t he, because this is a gorgeous place to play your golf.  Designed by Ian Woosnam and opened as recently as 2011, it really is a stunning course of beautiful parkland and incredible wildlife, and once the early morning mist lifts views of the Great Wall of China are available.

Measuring 7,261 yards for its Par 72, this stretch features undulating Paspalum greens and plenty of trees and water hazards for players to navigate around.

What a story the 2016 edition of this event was.  Held at Topwin for the very first time, the home supporters had a second consecutive winner to cheer home as Haotong Li overcame a two-shot deficit on the Sunday to reel in Felipe Aguilar and Lucas Bjerregaard with a bogey-free 64.  He followed compatriot Ashun Wu in taking down his home tournament.

This week it may well be the case that Wiesberger is the man to beat again as long as he doesn’t suffer from the infamous ‘champion effect’ which generally brings previous winners to their knees a week later.  He will be joined by a whole bunch of players who contended in Shenzhen, including Ross Fisher, Joost Luiten, Alex Levy, George Coetzee, Fabrizio Zanotti, and plenty more.  It isn’t a top tier European Tour event by any means, but there is enough to whet the appetite for another pulsating four days of action in China.

This part of the European Tour is unique in that we have back-to-back events where the previous week’s performances are so relevant.  Topwin and Genzon, the Shenzhen International host course, are similar in character and an approximate yardage, and clearly the weather conditions are going to be fairly similar too.

So is form at Shenzhen a prerequisite for success at the China Open?  Here are the first ten home at Shenzhen in 2016 and where they subsequently finished at Topwin:

• 1: Soomin Lee – MC
• T2: Joost Luiten – T44
• T2: Brandon Stone – Did Not Play
• T4: Scott Hend – T6
• T4: Lee Slattery – T34
• 7: Bradley Dredge – T15
• T8: Nacho Elvira – MC
• T8: Rikard Karlberg – T21
• T8: Thorbjorn Olesen – T15
• T8: Bubba Watson – Did Not Play

As you can see two high performers at Genzon subsequently missed the cut at Topwin (Soomin Lee’s MC was perhaps understandable given he won his first Tour title a week earlier), and four of the remaining six finished top-25 – with three going top-20 and Scott Hend connecting top tens.  In conclusion, we would say there is a link of sorts, with 3/8 players following their top 10 at Shenzhen with a top 20 at Topwin, and in 2015 – albeit on a different course to Topwin – six of the top ten in the China Open had finished in the top 25 of the Shenzhen.

What else do you need to know?  Well, expect a birdie fest if conditions suit.  Li won here in -22 a year ago, with 38 players in double digits under par and the cut line at -3!  The Chinaman played the Par 3s in -1, the Par 4s in -16 and the Par 5s in -5, so doing the simple things well is the key!

The European Tour didn’t collect stats from Li’s winning effort, but for second-placed Felipe Aguilar we find that the Chilean ranked 11th for Driving Accuracy (five of the first eleven players home ranked top-20 for this metric), fifth for Greens in Reg (6/11) ,and 32nd for Putts per Round (6/11).

So, with all of the above in mind, who are we taking in our DFS drafts this week?  Let’s run through the price tiers…

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Our Volvo China Open Fantasy Picks and Predictions

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The Volvo China Open Fantasy Picks

Bernd Wiesberger – $12,000 – We’re willing to spend nearly a quarter of our salary cap on one man….isn’t that madness?

Possibly, but Wiesberger ticks so many boxes this week he is hard to ignore.  The form is clearly there: eight top-10 finishes have come in his last fifteen starts, and as we have said the Austrian is destined for a place on the PGA TOUR at some point.  The manner of his victory last week is testament to that.

For DFS gamers Wiesberger does the business too.  Never mind the bonus points for high finishes, he is a birdie machine when he gets on a roll; averaging 18.2 per event, which is only bettered by one regular on the European Tour – David Lipsky – this season.

Normally we’d be reluctant to draft the former week’s winner in case they are in ‘celebration mode,’ but Wiesberger is thousands of miles from home and in a country as ‘non party’ as China, all he has to focus on is his golf.

If he enters the China Open with the same mindset as he did last week – and remember he was lying second at Topwin 12 months ago after 36 holes – he should go very close once again.

Fabrizio Zanotti – $9,900 – Nobody made more birdies than Zanotti at Shenzhen (25), and that propelled him up to T5 in the leaderboard which included a confidence-boosting final round of 64.

A winner earlier this year at the Maybank Championship, the Paraguayan showed he can hang in illustrious company by posting a T12 at WGC Mexico a few weeks ago.

On debut at Topwin last year Zanotti finished T9, and that is a very handy marker to improve on this week.

David Lipsky – $8,900 – As mentioned, Lipsky is a pretty unique player to have on side this week.  Of all the players on the European Tour to have played in five or more events in 2017, he leads the way with an eye-popping average of 18.4 birdies per tournament.

What that shows is his consistency, with a T5 finish at last week’s Shenzhen following a T2 at the Maybank in his last but one start on the tour too.  Factor in a T5 at the Hong Kong Open in October and we realize the extent to which Lipsky loves playing his golf in this part of the world.

Should you require any further persuasion, the American finished T9 here 12 months ago with a closing round of 66.

Gregory Bourdy – $8,500 – The Frenchman made 22 birdies and hit a hole-in-one at Shenzhen, so when we talk about confidence his must be sky high at the moment.  Ultimately he would finish one shot short of Wiesberger and Tommy Fleetwood, but that T3 marks a fantastic return to form for Bourdy.

He was T21 here on debut a year ago having entered the tournament with minimal form to his name, and the assumption then is that Topwin is a course that suits his eye.  He opened up with an excellent 66 there 12 months ago.

Noticeable was how well he putted at Shenzhen last week, ranking eleventh for Putts per Round and nineteenth for Greens in Reg.  In a birdie-fest like we expect this event to be, that bodes very well indeed.

Brett Rumford – $7,100 – A former China Open winner (albeit at a different course), Rumford showed his mettle in this part of the world with a T14 at Shenzhen last week, a run which included 20 birdies.

The Aussie is a six-time European Tour winner, the latest victory coming as recently as February in the Super 6 tournament in his home nation. Rumford is no stranger to getting past the winning post should the chance emerge.

The fact that he ranked first for Putts per Round at Genzon last time out suggests his game is in fine working order at present.

Matteo Manassero – $6,500 – It was a straight-up dogfight between Manassero and Haydn Porteous for our budget pick this week, and it’s the Italian who just bested the South African based upon his consistency.

He’s gone five for five of late, with the picks being a T3 at the Indian Open and a T20 at the Maybank Championship.  He’s still in good form, making 19 birdies at Genzon last week despite a lowly finish of T39.

An opening round of 69 at Topwin 12 months ago – which came after he had missed five of his last eight cuts – offers a tantalising glimpse of his potential.

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Cover photo via Instagram