The men and the women come together to continue a huge week for the game of golf when the DP World Tour stages the Scandinavian Mixed, an event which went down well last year and is back for another edition.
It was a groundbreaking week a year ago when Linn Grant took home the title, seeing off her fellow female players as well as some of the better male European players. She will return looking to make a successful defence of her crown.
Recent Winners
2022 – Linn Grant
2021 – Jonathan Caldwell
The Course
Grant will attempt to defender title at a different course to the one which she won on as we have moved to the Ullna Golf and Country Club in Stockholm this week. This course had a bit of a touch up by Jack Nicklaus and his team a decade or so ago and will play as a par 72 which measures 6,819 yards from the men’s tees so the immediate thing that we can take from that is length isn’t going to be needed to score around here.
There is said to be water in play on the majority of the holes courtesy of a stream which runs throughout the property. Most Nicklaus designs are all about the second shot and in and it would be a surprise if that isn’t the case here too. We saw last year that the rough wasn’t up too much, whether that was to allow the women to be as competitive as the men I’m not sure but it might be the case once again this week.
The Field
I don’t think anyone involved in the tournament would have expected a strong field from the men’s point of view with the third major of the year taking place across the pond next week. One high profile player who is in the field is the leading Swede in Alex Noren. He is joined by three other players in the top 100 in the world rankings. They are Adri Arnaus, Robert MacIntyre and Callum Shinkwin.
The other high profile person in the field this week is the women’s star Annika Sorenstam. She has been heavily involved in this event in the past and will hope to deliver on the course this week. Her fellow female Linn Grant is in the field looking to defend her title while other females of note with a tee time this week include Caroline Hedwall, Pia Babnik and Madelene Sagstrom. Alexander Bjork and Marcus Kinhult are among those looking to win a title on home soil.
Market Leaders
Alex Noren is the standout star in the field this week and he is the 14/1 favourite to take a home title away with him. It is hard to suggest that he is in particularly great form heading into the week but most of his returns have come on the PGA Tour. This is a level below that and in truth not the strongest field the DP World Tour has ever seen so Noren might only have to be solid to come out on top here. He is short enough though given the unknowns on his play.
Linn Grant initially opened up as the favourite to retain her title and in some places she is still the favourite but you can get 16/1 on her on the best prices. She won well last year but this is a different track to the one which she won on and this will be the biggest week of her life trying to defend a title of his magnitude. She is going to have plenty of attention on her before she tees off and throughout the week. That is why I’ve never a fan of backing defending champions and I’m not going to change that this week.
Alexander Bjork won’t be short of motivation to win in front of a home crowd and on the best prices he is 18/1 to do so. His best work tends to come away from Europe but he arrives here with three top 10 finishes in his last four starts, each of which was on the continent. They have all been in better fields than this one so if the home pressure doesn’t get in his way then he should be there or thereabouts. Bjork was T7 in this in 2021 but missed the cut last year. I wouldn’t be quick to write him off.
Robert MacIntyre is trending in the right direction but then out of nowhere he throws in a shocker of a week. He is 22/1 to win this title and after going T6-T7 in Japan and Korea earlier in the season, and T14 in the European Open last week there is certainly enough in his form to believe he can be competitive here. This will be the first time he has played in this event since 2019. That might usually be a negative but few in this field will have played a competitive round here so it might not be the issue it could’ve been.
Main Bets
Given that Linn Grant won this tournament by nine strokes last year I think we have to include a female in the staking plan and I want to go with one of the better women in the tournament in the form of Madelene Sagstrom who has been in good touch on the LPGA Tour and who the last time she played on the Ladies European Tour finished second which feels like good form. Her last three events over in America have seen her finish in T17, T10 and T13. The females in those fields are much stronger than she opposes here. Sagstrom is the second highest ranked female in the field on the world rankings with the only player higher than her being Grant who as I’ve said above I’m not too interested in as a defending champion. Sagstrom looks in the sort of form to make her stand out as the leading female this week.
Ewen Ferguson has shown signs of a return to his better form not just in his results but in his play. He was T4 at the Jonsson Workwear Open towards the end of March and then in the last two weeks he has finished T8 in Belgium and T14 in Germany last week where he was much better going into the final round when the going was a little tough. The Scot has a couple of wins to his name on the DP World Tour so we know he has no problem getting the job done which makes me think the final round last week was just him having to push on a notoriously tough golf course. He ranked seventh in greens in regulation and ninth in strokes gained on approach last week and if he has his irons dialled in like that here then he should go very well.
Outsiders
I’ll go with a couple of outsiders this week with Santiago Tarrio the first of those. He has had a couple of eye catching appearances in the last four starts with top 20 finishes in Italy and then in Germany last week. He was nicely placed at halfway but couldn’t quite go with the pace but on less of a testing track and against a weaker field overall those two efforts suggest that he should be in the staking plan this week. The Spaniard sits at 32 in strokes gained on approach this season on the DP World Tour and when you consider the bigger names ahead of him aren’t here this week that statistic ranking feels even more significant. I’ll pay to see how well he goes.
I’ll also pay to see how the home star Jonas Blixt goes this week. If you look at his recent results on the PGA Tour you probably wouldn’t be that encouraged by him but when you look a little deeper into the numbers there is some sense to backing him. Back in February he finished T7 on the Korn Ferry Tour in Colombia and there is a fair case to be made that a Korn Ferry Tour field is no weaker than what he comes up against here. The previous week he landed in the top 20 in the Pebble Beach Pro-Am. In six PGA Tour events since then he hasn’t finished better than T64 but in Mexico he carded a second round 67 and although he missed the cut at the Byron Nelson prior to the USPGA Championship, he shot 68 in the second round so he is offering up some scores. At a much lower level than where he has been operating if he can put three of those good rounds together he could be right in the mix here.
Tips
Back M.Sagstrom to win Scandinavian Mixed (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 26.00 with Coral (1/5 1-7)
Back E.Ferguson to win Scandinavian Mixed (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 29.00 with Coral (1/5 1-7)
Back S.Tarrio to win Scandinavian Mixed (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 91.00 with Boylesports (1/5 1-6)
Back him here:
Back J.Blixt to win Scandinavian Mixed (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 126.00 with Sky Bet (1/5 1-6)
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