The regular DP World Tour returns this week as the second tournament in the European Swing is played out when the Soudal Open, an event with plenty of history in its various guises, takes place in Antwerp.
Nacho Elvira won this tournament a year ago and the Spaniard is in the field looking to make a successful defence of the title. The field has broken up a little in the days leading up to the event getting going but still looks competitive enough.
Recent Winners
2024 – Nacho Elvira
2023 – Simon Forsstrom
2022 – Sam Horsfield
The Course
We are at the Rinkven International Golf Club in Antwerp this week. This is the course which was used for this tournament since the revert back to stroke play and which staged the two versions of the Belgian Knockout prior to the pandemic coming in and wiping golf in this part of the world out. The same composite course is in play this week which means the track is a par 71 which measures 6,940 yards and with showers around at the weekend it might well play to a full yardage for the last two rounds.
The course is quite exposed even though some of it is set in the woodland. It is a parkland course where water is in play on a number of holes so accuracy in the long game is very much required. Greens in regulation seems to be the big statistic here. 2019 winner of the Belgian Knockout, Guido Migliozzi was ranked second in GIR and that was a statistic that Benjamin Hebert, who lost the 2018 final ranked well in. This is not a track where excessive length is needed even allowing for the potential soft nature of the course.
The Field
As you would expect the week after a major took place across the pond and three weeks out from the next one, the field here isn’t carrying many elite players. In fact, only one player in the top 100 in the world rankings is teeing it up this week. That is Thriston Lawrence. We do have the defending champion Nacho Elvira teeing it up here while former winners around here, Simon Forsstrom, Guido Migliozzi and Adrian Otaegui are all in the field.
This could be a big week for those looking to do well in the Race to Dubai competition as five players inside the top 10 in the standings have the chance to make a bit of a move. John Parry and Haotong Li are both in the top five and could be sitting very pretty at the end of the week while Daniel Hillier, Martin Couvra and Marco Penge are all in the top 10. Jacques Kruyswijk and Keita Nakajima are just outside the top 10 with Eugenio Chacarra, Johannes Veerman, Dylan Naidoo, Richard Mansell and Jordan Smith all in the top 20 looking to improve their position.
Market Leaders
We have 22/1 joint favourites this week with the home star Thomas Pieters and Jordan Smith occupying that position. Pieters comes in here off the back of a top five finish in Korea on the LIV Tour and in his last two starts here he has finished ninth and second. Smith will be boosted by having qualified for the US Open earlier in the week and has top 10s in his last two tournaments. His record here is a little more mixed though with him finishing way down the field last year.
Eugenio Lopez-Chacarra will be looking for his second win of the season having picked up the title at the Indian Open in March and he is 28/1 for Belgian glory this week too. Chacarra had a very good Asian Swing which qualified him for the USPGA Championship last week. He missed the cut there but you would imagine he’ll be better for the experience, although that globetrotting, which he won’t be used to this early in his career, is enough to put me off taking him.
Haotong Li has been favourite for a few events this season and he is 30/1 to win this one too. The Chinese star has three top 10 finishes in his last four starts so he certainly has the form going into this event. He also wasn’t involved in the USPGA Championship last week which has to be a positive. He missed the cut on his only previous appearance here but that was two years ago when his game wasn’t in great shape. I wouldn’t want to sleep on the Chinese player this week.
A trio of players come next in the betting at 33/1. Tee to green specialist Joost Luiten is one of them while Matthew Jordan and Keita Nakajima are the other two. I’m going to give Jordan a swerve this week as he made a mess of US Open qualifying earlier in the week and eventually missed out in a playoff from a very strong position. Nakajima has been pretty busy this week having played the USPGA Championship and then US Open qualifying so I’ll leave him out whereas Luiten comes here with form figures of 3-14-MC-T5 but has a terrible record here. It is 35/1 bar.
Main Bets
I’m not a favourite backer in a golf tournament very often but I can’t ignore the credentials of Thomas Pieters this week and at 20/1 with the extra places I think he is a perfectly acceptable bet. Pieters played well on the LIV Tour in Korea and we saw last week the standard that players on that tour are producing when on another day Jon Rahm or Bryson DeChambeau could easily have walked away with another major title. Pieters has a good record on this course too with top 10 finishes in the last two attempts and with ranking points available he won’t be short of motivation to go well this week. For me, he is the class in the field and I don’t mind getting involved at 20/1.
Haotong Li has been a bit of an annoyance to me when carrying my money at times this season but I have to give the Chinese star another go here. Haotong won the Qatar Masters earlier in the campaign and since then his results have been T41-T16-T9-T4-T51-T2 so he is going pretty well this term. That is largely down to him being second in the strokes gained on approach category on the DP World Tour this term and when he putts well, which he might not need to do on these smaller greens, then he goes well. Hitting these greens is the big thing here and his approach play suggests he’ll do that better than most so I can’t leave Haotong off my team this week.
Outsiders
Jacques Kruyswijk has been one of the better players on the DP World Tour this season. He won in Kenya, where there is a similar correlation to this place so that is certainly no bad thing, and since then he has finished second in the Joburg Open and he spent the early part of the week qualifying for the US Open. He should go well here because he ranks inside the top 15 in strokes gained on approach and strokes gained putting this season and those are the two things that you need to do well to run hot here. Kruyswijk didn’t have a great record in the Belgian Knockout here a number of years ago but I’m not sure how much we can read into that because if you weren’t up with the pace after round one the second round was basically a non-event. I’ll give the South African the benefit of the doubt and add him to my team where he is perfectly justified to be included on his 2025 statistics.
My final selection for this tournament is the Italian player Andrea Pavan, another who comes into the week boosted by qualifying for the US Open next month. That comes off the back of a solid Asian Swing where he registered a top 10 in India and a top 25 in the Hainan Classic where he shot four rounds under par. He was in the top 25 here last year where he concluded with a 66 so we know that he can score on this course and he has to be boosted by his success at US Open qualifying so at the prices I think he is a worthwhile selection too.
Tips
Back T.Pieters to win Soudal Open (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 21.00 with Coral (1/5 1-7)
Back J.Kruyswijk to win Soudal Open (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 71.00 with Coral (1/5 1-7)
Back H.Li tto win Soudal Open (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 29.00 with Boylesports (1/5 1-6)
Back him here:
Back A Pavan to win Soudal Open (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 81.00 with Unibet (1/5 1-6)
