Acciona Open de Espana Tips 2023

Of course we must address the elephant in the room before we even attempt to formulate a plan of attack for this week. Jon Rahm is the clearest of favourites at 9/4 and his position at the top of the market is fully justified and fully expected.

A 5-shot victory here at Club de Campo on debut back in 2019 came at a price of 100/30; he bettered that result last year by a shot, beating Matthieu Pavon by 6 and returning a 5/2 win for those punters who just shrugged their shoulders and took the price on offer. With Justin Rose in attendance the bookies haven’t been able to slice a great deal more off of his price to put him in Tiger Woods in his pomp territory, however a buoyant Rahm fresh from an unbeaten 4 matches at the Ryder Cup could undoubtedly lap the field once again.

For me, backing any player at such short odds is an all or nothing decision for that week’s staking plan and I’m happy to take a chance on some each-way chances that might just challenge Rahm’s total on Sunday, or if not potentially produce a profit from the place returns.

17^th in 2021 when defending in a slightly less free-scoring renewal offers a little hope though and I’ll take on Rahm with the runner-up that week, Adri Arnaus, who could and perhaps really should have won.

Opening with a sparkling 63 and following up with a 67 to sit in 2^nd place behind Wil Besseling, Rahm was a heavy favourite to complete what would have been his hat-trick of Spanish Open titles before a 72/69 weekend saw him drop off the pace. A blip maybe – certainly he made up for it last year when eventually converting that hat-trick – but evidence nonetheless that he’s not invincible around these parts.

With Rahm out of the picture, it ended up with Arnaus and Rafa Cabrera-Bello to battle it out for the title, with the latter seriously riding his luck courtesy of a generous drop to make the play-off which he eventually won. Frustration for Adri who was still seeking his first win at the time, something that he finally achieved on home soil the following May at the Catalunya Championship.

A missed cut here last year is a blemish on an otherwise impressive Club de Campo record that now reads 4/2/MC, however he arrives here after a solid 14^th place finish at the Dunhill Links, which rates as a new personal best for the Spaniard at the home of golf, and a sign that his game is seemingly on an upturn after a disappointing few months.

13^th at the Dubai Desert Classic, 6^th in Ras al Khaimah and 2^nd at the SDC Championship before spring got a foothold promised much better than we’ve subsequently seen, however SG Putting ranks of 4^th and 10^th at Crans and Wentworth respectively have offered some hope, and an opening round of 64 at Carnoustie last week followed by a closing 67 at St Andrews hints that a much-needed improvement in his long game performance has finally arrived. RESULT: T64

Just a little further down the market, Grant Forrest appeals after another prominent display last week at the Dunhill Links.

Opening rounds of 65 and 67 put the 30 year-old in a strong position at the halfway point, just a stroke behind eventual winner Matt Fitzpatrick, before the weather intervened and handed the Englishman the advantage as he only had St Andrews to play versus Forrest’s Carnoustie. A tie for 10^th was the end result for the North Berwick resident, however that’s a great platform to take into what promises to be a far more straightforward week.

Low scores are generally the order of the day here at Club de Campo and Grant has categorically proven that he can get to the kind of score that may be required here this week when winning his maiden and to date only DP World Tour event 2 years ago. 24-under was what it took to secure the Hero Open at Fairmont St Andrews, and with an ever-improving forecast perhaps that experience will set him in good stead.

10 birdies and 2 eagles over his opening two rounds at the Dunhill Links suggests that his scoring is in a decent place right now, fuelled by a compliant putter that sees him inside the top 30 for SG Putting for the full season, and that follows on from a 3^rd place finish at the Irish Open last month where he made 21 birdies over the 4 days at an otherwise challenging K Club.

3 starts here at Club de Campo have seen Forrest make the weekend at each time of asking, with his 3^rd place finish here in 2021 his best effort overall – fuelled that week by 16 birdies and a massive 5 eagles over the four days. He comes into this week off of a better finish at the Dunhill Links (27^th two years ago) and can contend again here in my opinion. RESULT: T41

If the Open de France victory of Japanese youngster Ryo Hisatsune is likely to inspire anyone in this week’s field to a contending performance, then perhaps it’s compatriot Rikuya Hoshino.

6 years Ryo’s senior, Rikuya is another player who impressed at a young age, winning his first Japanese Tour title not long after his 22^nd birthday and having added 5 more titles on his home circuit to his name since. Seeing him step up at DP World Tour level wouldn’t surprise me whatsoever.

6^th at Ras al Khaimah in February, 3^rd at the BMW International Open in Germany in June, and 7^th at the Irish Open last month are Hoshino’s best results this season at this level, and at 75^th in the Race to Dubai he can look ahead rather than over his shoulder with the chance of an Earth Course debut next month not out of the realms of possibility if he can find another strong finish in the near future.

Interspersed with those efforts on the European circuit, the 27 year-old has finished runner-up a frustrating three times on the Japan Tour this season also, most recently at the Tokai Classic the week before last. His all-round stats looked solid though from what can be gleaned from that effort, with a field-leading Scrambling performance backing up top 11 efforts in terms of Driving Accuracy and GIR, and that’s undoubtedly a good fit for this week’s test should he repeat those metrics on course debut. RESULT: WD

The 8^th place finish at this year’s Open Championship for Shubhankar Sharma may have come pretty much out of the blue, but it was nevertheless a timely reminder what the Indian superstar is capable of.

Now this week’s task bears no correlation to the links of Hoylake, granted, however with hot favourite and two-time Club de Campo winner Jon Rahm finishing just two shots better than Sharma on The Wirral, perhaps it shouldn’t be dismissed out of hand as entirely irrelevant.

Perhaps what is of more relevance to this week’s task though are the 27 year-old’s two wins at DP World Tour level. The 2017 Joburg Open and 2018 Malaysian Open both came on scoreable, tree-lined tracks with winning totals of 23- and 21-under respectively, and although he’s winless at all levels since then, he can still boast a further 6 PGTI wins from earlier in his career.

Of course the most relevant piece of form to this week’s task is his debut 3^rd place finish here on this course in 2021. Opening rounds of 67/64 put Sharma in a great spot heading into the weekend, and save for an early double-bogey on the par-3 third on Sunday, he could have been right in the conversation at the very end of proceedings. A solid showing nevertheless, with impressive in-field rankings of 2^nd for SG Approach and 1^st for SG Tee to Green.

7^th at the Irish Open last month showed further promise and I can forgive a lowly 84^th place finish last week at the Dunhill Links, with a slow start at Carnoustie followed by a much more respectable 66 at Kingsbarns leaving him off the pace before the rain arrived. RESULT: T35

Scandinavian golf is flying at present and the feel-good factor from recent global successes from Viktor Hovland, Vincent Norrman and Ludvig Aberg may well be washing off on Denmark’s Jeff Winther.

2^nd and the Open de France and 10^th at the Dunhill Links, the 35 year-old is amongst the most immediately in-form players in this week’s field, yet the odds on offer show more than a little disrespect for his chances on a course where he finished 4^th on debut back in 2019.

63 to close that effort here 4 years ago gives some indication of the sort of low rounds that Winther can produce when everything clicks, and there was further evidence of that at the Gran Canaria Lopesan Open in 2021 when he closed with rounds of 62/64 before he won his maiden title at DP World Tour level at the Mallorca Open later that year, fuelled by a pair of 62s in the first and third rounds. The eagle-eyed among you will have spotted that both of those efforts came on Spanish soil, albeit on the islands rather than mainland, and he clearly feels comfortable in this neck of the woods.

8^th at the British Masters and 24^th at the Made In Himmerland in July hinted at some improvement in form after a quiet start to 2023, however it was at Le Golf National that Jeff really found his game and in particular his putter, finishing 2^nd behind Ryo Hisatsune and ranking 2^nd for SG Putting on the week, gaining 9.5 strokes in total over the field with the flat stick.

Last week’s effort included 19 birdies over three rounds and was bookended by rounds of 66 and 65 to continue his upsurge in form, and in my view his price here doesn’t reflect how well he’s playing right now. RESULT: MC