The DP World Tour heads back to Germany this week for the BMW International Open as we continue the countdown towards the final major of the year, which is rapidly closing in later in the month.
Thriston Lawrence had a decent week in Germany last season and ran off with the title and the South African will be looking to build up towards The Open by retaining the title. A competitive field will oppose him here.
Recent Winners
2023 – Thriston Lawrence
2022 – Haotong Li
2021 – Viktor Hovland
2019 – Andrea Pavan
2018 – Matt Wallace
2017 – Andres Romero
2016 – Henrik Stenson
2015 – Pablo Larrazabal
2014 – Fabrizio Zanotti
2013 – Ernie Els
The Course
We are back at the Golfclub Munchen Eichenried this week, the course which has hosted the event for a number of years previously. The course is a composite course which plays to a par of 72 and measures 7,347 yards so it isn’t terribly long. This will be the fourth time we’ve been here since the course underwent a lot of changes with all the greens being dug up and new undulations put into them and it is playing a little trickier than it previously did.
The finishing three holes are the highlight of this course where water is in play but by and large the fairways are pretty big here so once again we’re on a second shot golf course where a hot putter is very much the requirement of the day. There isn’t a real statistical anomaly in the previous results here but if one does tend to get a player higher up the leaderboard it is greens in regulation so have good iron players in mind this week.
The Field
We have a better field than we had for the tournament last week and three members of the top 100 in the world rankings are here with Ryan Fox the highest ranked player at 63. He comes over from the PGA Tour which will either be a tip in itself or he’ll be jaded. Keita Nakajima is the next highest ranked player in the field and the other member of the top 100 is the defending champion Thriston Lawrence while Patrick Reed is only just outside that elite bracket.
We also have a huge number of the top 20 in the Race to Dubai standings who will be looking to make a move ahead of the big guns returning for the Rolex Series event next week. Rikuya Hoshino sits at four in those standings with Jesper Svensson and five and Guido Migliozzi at seven. Nacho Elvira, Matteo Manassero, Adrian Otaegui and Darius van Driel are in the top 20. Special recognition in the field should also go to Bernhard Langer who competes on the DP World Tour for the final time this week.
Market Leaders
We have three joint favourites to win the tournament this week and they are probably the three biggest names in the field in Ryan Fox, Patrick Reed and Thomas Pieters. The latter two will be determined to go well here with world ranking points on offer. This is the first regular DP World Tour appearance of Fox since the Dubai Desert Classic but he’s gone well on the PGA Tour recently and can’t be ruled out. He was third here two years ago too. Reed didn’t really offer much in Italy last week so Pieters, who was second in Belgium not long ago and second here two years ago would interest me most if I were backing any of this trio.
Keita Nakajima is next in the betting at 22/1 this week. The Indian Open winner is the second highest ranked player in the field this week and you can see why he is expected to go well having finished sixth in the other event in Germany last month. He plays here for the first time which is a bit of a negative but he has the profile to go well here if a few weeks without teeing it up hasn’t brought some rust in his direction.
Bernd Wiesberger is the only player in the field who is shorter than 30/1 other than those named. He was looking like he was coming to the boil prior to last week where he offered nothing on a course where more would have been expected of him. He does have a couple of top five finishes around here though so if he is in anything like the form he can show then there is no reason why he won’t be contending again but I remain less than convinced than I need to be.
Main Bets
It is iron play that we want this week so it is hard to look too far past Guido Migliozzi, who as it happens is in great form anyway having won the title at the KLM Open a couple of weeks ago and when you consider the emotional energy that win would have taken out of him he performed fairly well on home soil last week. Prior to winning the KLM Open, the Italian was second in the China Open and eighth at the European Open so he has really caught fire in recent weeks. He finished in the top 10 here last year so he is a fairly obvious main bet this week.
Joost Luiten might be playing with a bit of freedom this week having won his court case to be allowed to represent the Netherlands at the Olympics and on a course where he finished second last year that might make him dangerous. It isn’t a surprise that the Dutchman went so well here last year because he has always been one of the better iron players on the DP World Tour and although he doesn’t have anything fantastic to speak of in terms of form recently, he has finished inside the top 15 twice in his last four starts which is encouraging. He is a good fit for this place so I’ll pay to see how he goes.
Outsiders
Andrea Pavan is a former winner of this tournament and he won it here on this course so that is very much a positive. The Italian has been in the wilderness for a couple of seasons but much like his compatriot Matteo Manassero, who has already won as an outsider on the DP World Tour for me this season, he has found his game this year and particularly in recent times where he has two top five finishes in his last two events coming in here. Pavan finished the KLM Open with a 65 and then started last week with a 64 so with that sort of scoring in his locker he is an obvious outsider bet having already won on this track.
Ross Fisher has been hitting a lot of greens this season but he hasn’t been finishing tournaments off but having had some decent results in this tournament and in Germany as a whole I will pay to see if he can put four rounds together here. He sits eighth on the tour for greens in regulation this season and he has played here more than enough times to know the greens and how to putt on them so if he is going to put four rounds together anywhere the way he is hitting the ball there is a good chance it will be here. I’ll pay to see if that is the case.
Tips
Back G.Migliozzi to win BMW International Open (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 29.00 with Coral (1/5 1-7)
Back J.Luiten to win BMW International Open (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 36.00 with Boylesports (1/5 1-8)
Back R.Fisher to win BMW International Open (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 126.00 with Boylesports (1/5 1-8)
Back them here:
Back A.Pavan to win BMW International Open (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 67.00 with Betway (1/5 1-7)
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