The Euro Breakdown provides event history and examines all the relevant data to assist you in analyzing the oftentimes unfamiliar events of the European Tour.
What You Need To Know
The Alfred Dunhill Links Championship is played over three links courses in four days. During the first three rounds, a pro and his amateur partner will play The Old Course at St. Andrews, Carnoustie, and Kingsbarns. On Sunday, those still in contention will return to The Old Course for the finale.
Actors Andy Garcia and Hugh Grant and musician Huey Lewis are just a few of the well-known amateurs who will be teeing it up this week.
This is one of the richest purses on the European Tour so it attracts a strong field, including six of the freshly-defeated European Ryder Cup team members. There are nine Major Champions, eight players in the top 50 of the Official World Golf Ranking, and two former World No. 1s in the field.
Course and History
The three courses are set up to be playable for the amateurs and scores get low. Thorbjorn Olesen won last year’s event at 18-under par. American Brooks Koepka finished in a tie for second place at 16-under par. The top-thirty players had scores of no higher than 10-under par.
In previous years the courses haven’t punished those who miss the fairways off the tee, so we’ll be looking for golfers who can hit the ball long and excel in Greens In Regulation.
It’s October in Scotland so get ready for some cold temperatures. Winds of 10 to 15 miles per hour are in the forecast with gusts up to 20 mph. Since 2001, 11 of the 15 winners have been from Great Britain or Ireland. Padraig Harrington is the only two-time winner (2002 and 2007) and has played in the tournament each year since its establishment 15 years ago.
Driving Distance
High-Priced Tier: $9,000 and Higher
Thomas Pieters has been scorch-the-earth hot lately and is coming off a Ryder Cup performance in which he won four of five matches and led the tournament in points. His 302.2-yard Long-Term Driving Distance (LT DD) leads the high-priced tier and is tied for eighth overall. Pieters’ 70.4 percent Recent GIR is not in the upper echelon of players at this tournament, but it’s clearly nothing to sneeze at. His 14.6 LT Adjusted Birdies Per Tournament (Adj Bird Avg) is the fifth-best mark in the field. Pieters missed the cut in 2015 but finished 18th in his debut here in 2014. Pieters may very well win this tournament (he has the second-highest Odds to Win) and should be deployed in both cash games and guaranteed prize pools.
Branden Grace is the only other high-priced golfer in the top-20 for LT DD with a 297.8-yard average off the tee. Grace won this tournament in 2012, and his 68.9 LT Adj Round Score (Rd Score) is the best in the field. Golfers in his price range with comparable LT Adj Rd Scores have previously produced a +2.12 Plus/Minus with 56.7 percent Consistency on DraftKings (per our Trends tool).
Mid-Priced Tier: $7,000 to $8,900
The Belgian Bomber Nicolas Colsaerts is a frequent visitor to this space. His 305.9-yard LT DD is tied for fourth overall and his 73.5 LT GIR percentage ranks third. He profiles as a player who should do well here, where he finished ninth in 2011 and 57th last year. Colsaerts last missed cut was at the PGA Championship way back in July. His 69.6 Recent Adj Rd Score is tied for 17th. Deploy Colsaerts with confidence.
Lucas Bjerregaard checks in right behind Colsaerts with a 303.9-yard LT DD. Bjerregaard’s 80.2 DK points per game over the last month is the fifth-best average among golfers in the field who have played at least three tournaments recently. He has been a consistent Plus/Minus monster all season.
Value Tier: $6,900 and Lower
Dean Burmester can drop some serious bombs off the tee. His 317.2-yard LT DD is the best in the field by more than seven yards. His 70.4 percent LT GIR is tied for 16th, and his 16.8 LT Adj Bird Avg is the second-best mark in the field. He has missed three of his last eight cuts and hasn’t finished higher than 20th since May. Priced at $6,500, he brings some volatile GPP upside to stars-and-scrubs lineups.
Greens In Regulation
High-Priced Tier: $9,000 and Higher
You guessed it! It’s Rafael Cabrera-Bello who leads the high-priced tier in both LT and Recent GIR percentage. RCB’s 74.8 percent LT mark is great, but his 81.9 Recent percentage is amazing. Cabrera-Bello has missed the cut in four of his last five tries at this event. His 69.6 LT Adj Rd Score is tied for fifth and he has played well on some links-style courses this season (21st at Scottish Open, 39th at British Open, and fifth at the Olympics). If DFS players are concerned about his brutal event history, he could be an excellent low-owned GPP play.
Masters Champion Danny Willett has juiced his GIR recently, posting a 79.2 percent mark in his last two tournaments. He also has an incredible 20.5 Adj Bird Avg during that time. His 68.1 Recent Adj Rd Score ranks second. Players in comparable recent form have manufactured a +5.03 Plus/Minus with 59.7 percent Consistency.
Since 2011, Tommy Fleetwood has three top-five finishes (as well as a 13th-place performance) in this event. He also owns a Recent GIR rate of 80.4 percent in his last five tournaments, and his 69.4 Recent Adj Rd Score ranks 14th. Fleetwood has finished 16th or better in four of his last five tournaments. He’s an excellent play this week.
Mid-Priced Tier: $7,000 to $8,900
Fabrizio Zanotti ranks fifth overall in Recent GIR at 78.5 percent. Zanotti has made the cut in eight of his last nine events and finished 20th or better in four of them. He’s missed three of six cuts in this event since 2010, but he enters this tournament in great form.
Robert Rock is in a similar spot. His 74.3 percent Recent GIR is excellent, and he has a top-20 Recent Adj Rd Score (69.6). He has a bunch of missed cuts in this event, however, and he hasn’t finished better than 61st here since 2012.
Golfers in this price range with Recent GIR percentages comparable to those of Rock and Zanotti have generated a +4.41 Plus/Minus with 59.3 percent Consistency.
Value Tier: $6,900 and Lower
Peter Hanson not only owns the seventh-best Recent GIR percentage (77.8) in the field, but he’s also played really well in this event. In his last three starts at the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship, Hanson has finished ninth, 13th, and 34th. Hanson’s unimpressive LT and Recent Adj Rd Scores (71.1 and 71.3) may cause him to go overlooked this week. He’s an excellent and economical GPP play.
Good luck on the links this week!
