The Lyoness Open, the Shot Clock Masters, the Austrian Golf Open, and for this year the newly named Austrian Alpine Open, whatever you like to call it, Austria’s premier golfing event is back on the schedule this week after a 4-year hiatus.
With SalzburgerLand the new sponsors as they raise awareness of the beautiful tourist options in Austria, we’ll be venturing to what’s for all intents and purposes a new track this week. Gut Altentann GC hasn’t hosted this event since England’s Peter Mitchell won here with a closing round of 62 way back in 1992, when a large chunk of this field won’t have been so much as a twinkle in their fathers’ eye.
Rasmus Neergaard-Peterson returns from the PGA Tour again this week and has been chalked up as the 14/1 joint favourite alongside Jordan Smith in this 156-man field. Haotong Li rates as the next shortest-priced player in the field at 22/1, with 40/1 or longer widely available on players outside of the top 8 in the market.
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Course Overview. Gut Altentann is a short, parkland course measuring 6,941 yards for its par of 70. Both sets of 9 close with reachable par-5s measuring 558 and 523 yards respectively, and there are 5 par-4s of 400 yards or shorter which will present scoring opportunities to all of the field. All 4 of the par-3s are sub-200 yards, which leaves the long par-4s at the 4th, 6th and 12th holes as the biggest dangers.
A Jack Nicklaus design dating back to 1988, this was the Golden Bear’s first European venture with a premium on accuracy given that water comes into play on 11 of the 18 holes. The course was built in mature woodland and holes are tree-lined although not claustrophobically so, leading to undulating Bent/Poa greens that are well-guarded by bunkers.
Tournament Stats. We’ve published some key statistics for this week’s event that will help to shape a view on players who may go well this week.
Predictor Model. Our published Predictor Model is available here. As always you can build your own model using the variables available.
Winners & Prices. 2021: John Catlin, 70/1; 2020: Marc Warren, 150/1; 2018 (Shot Clock Masters): Mikko Korhonen, 28/1; 2017 (Lyoness Open): Dylan Frittelli, 40/1; 2016: Ashun Wu, 160/1; 2015: Chris Wood, 12/1; 2014: Mikael Lundberg, 250/1; 2013: Joost Luiten, 25/1; 2012: Bernd Wiesberger, 25/1; 2011: Kenneth Ferrie, 55/1; 2010: Jose Manuel Lara, 66/1.
Weather Forecast. The latest weather forecast for the area is here.
Wet weather to start the event will give way to a warm and sunny weekend with temperatures nudging up to the mid-70s Fahrenheit. Winds will be light at around 5-10mph throughout.
Tournament Trends & Key Factors.
With only 3 events from the early 90s to review here at Gut Altentann, background for this week’s event is extremely sparse. The winners and their respective scores are as follows, with the track playing as a par 72 back at the time:
1992, Peter Mitchell, -17. 74/62/73/62
1991, Mark Davis, -19. 66/66/71/66
1990, Bernhard Langer, -17. 65/66/72/68
Mitchell was a three-time winner on the European Tour with the first of those victories coming here before following up in Madeira and Portugal. This was also the scene of Mark Davis’s breakthrough victory with his only other success coming in Austria again 3 years later. Langer of course is an entirely different story as he was already a Masters Champion and 22-time European Tour winner before his 1990 victory here.
Drawing too many conclusions from these stat-less events from more than 3 decades ago would be dangerous, however at least we have a view of what the scoring levels were like back in the day.
Incoming Form: In terms of recent results prior to victory, the bulk of John Catlin’s best work had been done towards the end of 2020 rather than at the start of 2021 prior to his victory at Diamond Country Club in this event. A closing 65 on his penultimate start in Kenya had shown some promise though.
The year before that, Marc Warren had shown very little prior to lockdown to suggest that success was pending. 45th at the South African Open was his only outing before golf was halted and he’d failed to finish inside the top-50 at all in the year prior.
2018 Shot Clock Masters champion Mikko Korhonen arrived at the event having missed the cut at the Italian Open the week before his victory, however 15th at Wentworth prior to that with an eye-catching display with his irons suggested his game was in good shape.
Dylan Frittelli had recorded a couple of runner-up finishes in the recent past before missing two consecutive cuts prior to winning the last Lyoness Open before the event’s demise. Ashun Wu had been solid if unspectacular with 8 out of 10 cuts made in 2016 and a best of 16th prior to victory.
In 2015, Chris Wood arrived off the back of a top-20 in Ireland that followed a decent 4th place finish at Wentworth. In 2014, Mikael Lundberg had shown little incoming form of note with 28th at the Spanish Open two events before being his best finish of what had been a poor season up to that point.
Kenneth Ferrie had finished 8th at Gleneagles on his penultimate start which was his best result for some time and Jose Manuel Lara had finished 4th the week before in the Netherlands – his best effort for over a year. Joost Luiten and Bernd Wiesberger were both more obvious winners, Luiten had finished inside the top-11 on three occasions in recent events and Wiesberger had won the Ballantine’s Championship earlier that year:
2021, John Catlin: 1/8/1/MC/MC/54/MC/MC/MC/42/28/MC
2020, Marc Warren: MC/MC/MC/MC/MC/DQ/MC/65/MC/75/56/45
2018, Mikko Korhonen: MC/22/61/MC/MC/3/MC/41/26/15/MC
2010, Jose Manuel Lara: MC/MC/MC/MC/MC/WD/MC/MC/MC/4
A short, tree-lined par 70 should appeal to the more strategic, accurate types although wet weather followed by calm, sunny conditions could leave the course susceptible to lower scoring than anticipated.
Regulars will know that I’ve historically had a bit of a soft spot for Joost Luiten, and whilst I’ve kept my powder dry recently when it comes to backing the Dutchman, this week sets up far too well for me to ignore him.
Jack Nicklaus courses tend to favour those players with strong approach games and Joost has that in spades. 3rd on Tour for SG Approach, the 39 year-old has topped that metric on three of his last six starts, including last week in Belgium. His Off the Tee game hasn’t been too shabby either over that stretch, ranking 1st, 2nd and 4th at various points, whilst his SG Tee to Green performances have been equally impressive, ranking 1st, 2nd and 5th twice over those same events. Put simply, his long game is in the kind of shape where a win will follow when the putter behaves for 4 days.
As ever with Joost, it’s those subtle improvements with the flat stick than can make all the difference to his finishing position, and his 5th place finish in Turkey was a case in point where he recorded his best Strokes Gained performance on the greens since August. I’m not suggesting that he’s turned into Brad Faxon overnight, but positive signs have to be taken seriously with Luiten, even if he didn’t repeat that same level last week at the Soudal Open.
The biggest stumbling block may be the fact that the most recent of Joost’s six DP World Tour wins came back in 2018 and he’s a little rusty when it comes to getting over the line. All of those wins came with what I’d class as relevant mid-score winning totals to this week’s task at between 12- and 19-under par, plus his second victory at this level came on Austrian soil back in 2013.
That final point may be just as relevant as his approach play suiting this week’s test. Luiten’s record in Austria on the European/DP World Tour over the years reads 17/3/1/3/6/7/18/6/12 – that’s impressive by anyone’s standards.
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Eugenio Chacarra 2pts EW 30/1 (8EW, 1/5) with Betfred
Whilst I’d expect the favourites Rasmus Neergaard-Peteresen and Jordan Smith to feature this week, the Dane is still seeking his first win at this level and the Englishman is far from prolific given his regular contending performances. For me, Eugenio Chacarra is a much stronger betting prospect at around double the price, with his breakthrough Hero Indian Open victory from March still very much front of mind.
As with my headline selection, Chacarra’s strongest asset is his approach play, leading the Tour as he does for SG Approach so far this season. That aspect of his game has been in further evidence since his win at both the China Open and Hainan Classic, where he ranked 13th and 1st on that count on his way to 4th and 11th place finishes respectively.
The 25 year-old is seeing most courses for the first time since his departure from LIV which adds further encouragement as we move to what is far all intents and purposes a new track for the Tour this week, and this ambitious Spaniard could quickly build on his Indian success as he looks to effectively leapfrog the DP World Tour by gaining one of the ten coveted PGA Tour cards available this season. At 15th on the Race to Dubai as it stands and with a number of those ahead of him not requiring a card, the opportunity is very real for Eugenio.
I can’t offer you any Austrian form to enhance his case, nor is there much in the way of comparable course form to draw upon given he’s played so little outside of the LIV circuit since turning professional, however in the fullness of time I suspect we’ll conclude that the Madrid man is a class above this week’s field and the price simply has to be taken.
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Fabrizio Zanotti 1pt EW 100/1 (8EW, 1/5) with Betfred
As with other events on the DP World Tour where there’s very little or no history to go on, I’m keeping my staking plan very tight this week with an each-way bet on Fabrizio Zanotti completing my team of three.
The 42 year-old become Paraguay’s first ever European Tour winner when he won the BMW International Open back in 2014. That year’s course rotation took the event to Gut Larchenhof, another relatively short Jack Nicklaus parkland design with Bent/Poa greens and water in play on half of the holes, where his 19-under total was good enough to make and eventually win in a play-off.
His second and to date only other victory also came at 19-under par – a score that’s in keeping with the historical events held here when it played to a par of 72 – achieved at the 2017 Maybank Championship. Saujana Golf & Country Club was the venue that year and that tree-lined test holds comparisons to this week’s venue in terms of style and length.
Chances have come and gone since that point in time, however more recent efforts include 7th at last year’s Andalucia Masters where water was one of the main defences, 9th in Singapore in March, and more recently 9th again at the Hainan Classic, all of which add some encouragement that Zanotti could reward each-way backers this week.
9th for SG Approach and 4th for SG Tee to Green on Hainan Island on a course that’s arguably too long for him was impressive, and he returned to action after 4 weeks off last week with a solid 25th place finish in Belgium where he was Strokes Gained positive in every category.
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