The DP World Tour returns for 2023 with a new match play tournament, the Hero Cup, which sees 20 Ryder Cup hopefuls playing in a competition which provides fourball, foursomes and singles action between a Great Britain and Ireland team and a Continental Europe one.
Tommy Fleetwood and Francesco Molinari will captain the two teams with Ryder Cup captain Luke Donald overseeing the whole event. Abu Dhabi is the setting for what should be a decent weekend of golf.
The Format
Each team has 10 players who will be involved in all four sessions of play. Friday consists of five fourball matches with Saturday being made up of two sessions of foursomes golf. The tournament will then conclude with 10 singles on Sunday. Each match is over 18 holes and carries a point to the winner or half a point for a tie and the team who gets to 13 points will be the inaugural winners of the Hero Cup.
GB & Ireland
Tommy Fleetwood is the playing captain for the GB and Ireland team and he will be joined by two men who was on the losing Ryder Cup team with him two years ago in Shane Lowry and Tyrrell Hatton. There are also seven men who will hope to be involved in Rome later this year on show. Seamus Power might have the best status of those but Ewen Ferguson won twice last season and will be in contention if he repeats that in 2023.
Robert MacIntyre was in the mix for a wildcard spot for Whistling Straits but fell just short but he has made the Great Britain and Ireland team this weekend where he is joined by Matt Wallace, who will hope to get things back on the straight and narrow this week, Jordan Smith who won in Portugal at the end of last season and will hope to kick on from there, Callum Shinkwin whose length could be useful come October and Richard Mansell who is one of the more consistent players on the tour.
Continental Europe
Francesco Molinari will be the playing captain of the Continental Europe team this week. He will be desperate to get his game back into a position where he can be in Rome in October to play a Ryder Cup on home soil. He has two players with Ryder Cup experience on his team in Thomas Pieters and Alex Noren while Nicolai Hojgaard and Victor Perez would have been strongly considered as wildcards by Padraig Harrington for the last Ryder Cup. Both have a chance to shine here.
Sepp Straka has laid down his intentions to be available for the Ryder Cup by flying straight from Hawaii to Abu Dhabi for this tournament. He will take his place on the Continental European team alongside Thomas Detry and the winner of two tournaments in 2022 in Adrian Meronk. The other two members of this team are the Italian player Guido Migliozzi, who like Molinari will be keen to be involved in Rome later in the year, and Antoine Rozner.
Outright Betting
I’m really surprised that the Continental Europe team are the outsiders for this competition. Great Britain and Ireland have strength in their big three of Tommy Fleetwood, Shane Lowry and Tyrrell Hatton, two of whom have won the Abu Dhabi Championship on this course, but behind them there is a little bit of baggage to carry and a fair bit of match play inexperience as well. I don’t see that with Continental Europe as much.
There is a lack of match play experience overall but there aren’t many short hitters in this European side and there are no shortage of shot makers. Of course, in the end match play often comes down to putting and I think there are more players better with the short stick on the European team than the GB and Ireland one and when push comes to shove, especially on Sunday when this thing gets settled as I quite expect the first two days to be tight, that can be the difference. 11/8 on a Europe win looks too big to me.
Top GB & Ireland Point Scorer
We have markets for the point scorers for both teams and unlike when we get to the Ryder Cup later in the year we don’t need to mess around with who might play how many sessions because all the players are involved in all four sessions of play. Basically we are looking for someone in a decent pairing who can be relied upon to win a singles match and when we look at the Great Britain and Ireland team I think that person is the last winner on this track in Tyrrell Hatton.
Hatton is out alongside Jordan Smith in the first round and that should be a really good four ball pairing. There isn’t really anyone who wouldn’t be a good partner for him in the foursomes and then when it comes to the singles Hatton has plenty of match play experience and unless he ran into a Pieters or a Noren I’d fancy him against anyone so around the 11/2 mark I think the six-time DP World Tour winner is the one to be on this weekend.
Top Continental European Point Scorer
The same thinking goes into the market for the Continental scorer in that we are looking for someone who can be relied on to win a singles point. If I am being honest I was looking towards Thomas Pieters or Alex Noren in this team but both are out together in the opening fourballs. I don’t necessarily see that as a bad thing but they are out against the marquee Great Britain and Ireland pairing which is more of an issue.
That makes me think that Victor Perez is the man to be with instead. Perez is a former semi-finalist in the WGC Match Play event in Austin so we know he can handle the one-on-one combat and as a beautiful driver of the ball with no real weakness anywhere in the bag he compliments whoever he is paired with well. It is Guido Migliozzi who gets the pleasure of his company on Friday and you would imagine Antoine Rozner will be paired with him at some point too. I’m more comfortable with Perez and Migliozzi winning on Friday so at a double digit price the Frenchman is my selection here.
Tips
Back Continental Europe to win Hero Cup for a 3/10 stake at 2.38 with Sky Bet
Back T.Hatton Top GB & Ire Point Scorer for a 2/10 stake at 6.50 with Coral
Back V.Perez Top Continental European Point Scorer (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 11.00 with Boylesports (1/4 1-3)
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