With the third Major Championship of the 2016 season almost upon us, our stats guru has trawled through the form books to bring you these three names you might want to consider for your Fantasy sides this week at The 145th Open Championship at Royal Troon Golf Club.
Pick of the favourites: Sergio Garcia
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Widely regarded as one of the best players still yet to win a Major Championship, Sergio Garcia arrives in Ayrshire as many a pundit’s tip for success this week at Royal Troon. Garcia, this week making his 72nd start in one of golf’s biggest four events, has 21 top ten Major finishes to his name with nine of those having come at The Open, including two runner-up spots in 2007 and 2014. The 36 year old is playing in his 20th Open this week so certainly has plenty of experience to fall back on, but his form of late has been equally impressive, too. In addition to his recent win at the Byron Nelson Championship on the US PGA Tour last month, Garcia has finished inside the top five in each of his last three appearances on the European Tour – and all on highly challenging setups in Valderrama at the Open de España, Oakmont at the US Open and Gut Laerchenhof in the BMW International Open. We’ve already had two breakthrough Major wins this year at Augusta and in Pennsylvania, could Garcia make it a hat-trick this week in Scotland?
Form horse: Lee Westwood
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Another man still searching for a maiden Major win at his 70-somethingth time of asking, Lee Westwood will retain high hopes of hoisting the Claret Jug come Sunday evening. Despite being winless on the European Tour in more than two years, the experienced Englishman has shown signs of his best form over the last couple of months with five finishes inside the top 15 in his last six starts, including a runner-up finish at the Masters earlier this year – his 18th top ten in a Major. The 43 year old has four career top five finishes at The Open and a good record in previous Opens held at Troon, too, having finished tied tenth at the Ayrshire venue in 1997 and fourth in 2004. Is this his year?
Wild card: Chris Wood
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With his father acting as caddie, Chris Wood sprang to global prominence eight years ago in finishing tied fifth in The 2008 Open Championship at Royal Birkdale as an amateur, while a year later he would go two better by finishing third at Turnberry. Despite never having contended for the Claret Jug since those dream first two years, don’t be surprised if the Englishman is in the mix in Scotland this week. Wood is in some of the form of his life having won the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth in May before recording sixth and 11th place finishes in Austria and France plus a tied 23rd place at the US Open. At 22nd in the world currently, Wood has never been ranked higher so will have plenty of confidence ahead of his 14th Major appearance.
Those are our picks, did we do enough to convince you? Add them to yourEuropean Tour Daily Fantasy Gameand your line-up in theFantasy Race To Dubaibefore the action begins on Thursday morning.
