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Fantasy Three to watch in Portugal
Fantasy golf

Fantasy Three to watch in Portugal

From Versailles to Vilamoura, this week the European Tour travels to the Algarve for the Portugal Masters at the Arnold Palmer designed Dom Pedro Victoria Golf Course.

Matt Wallace

But which players should you keeping an eye on? Our stats guru has crunched the numbers to bring you three selections for your fantasy teams this week.

Favourite - Matt Wallace

Matt Wallace returns to Portugal for the third consecutive season and starts the week as strong favourite to win for the first time in over a year.

Coming off a week of rest, the highest ranked player in the field is enjoying a strong end to the season - finishing inside the top ten in his last Rolex Series start and contending at the KLM Open, ending up solo third. Take his season as a whole and you'll see why a win is close, with two runner-up finishes to his name.

Since it's addition to the European Tour schedule in 2007 the Portugal Masters can be a birdie fest, with the average winner coming in at 20 under par - music to Matt Wallace's ears as he ranks eighth for stroke average this season - averaging 69.65 per round

Portugal is a country filled with happy memories for the World Number 29. If you travel just 32 miles west of this week's venue at Dom Pedro Victoria you'll reach Morgado Golf Resort, the site of Wallace's first European Tour win - 2017 Open de Portugal. It is also worth mentioning that he has never missed a cut at the Portugal Masters.

Matt Wallace

Form horse - Adri Arnaus

He might be a rookie, but Adri Arnaus has certainly found his feet on the European Tour in his debut season.

With only 27 events under his belt the Spaniard has collected six top ten finishes, in which three of those he was runner-up and has played some fearless golf. For his last 11 rounds on Tour he's 19 under par.

Another player who took a well earned rest last week, he began this week celebrating his 25th birthday in Catalonia before driving to the neighbouring country of Portugal.

One part of Arnaus' game that has been particularly impressive is his driving. He averages 307 yards off-the-tee, 13 yards more than the tour average, which sees him rank 23rd this season. It's this driving that can separate him from the field at the Dom Pedro Victoria course where 1,800 new trees have been planted for 2019, meaning we could see the Spaniard taking some risky lines off the tee.

Adri Arnaus

Wildcard - Joao Carlota

Talk about home advantage, this week Joao Carlota is playing at the course he's a member of - Dom Pedro Victoria Golf Course.

With a number of the tournaments he has played in this year being on the Challenge Tour, a week at home in Vilamoura and an invite onto the European Tour could inspire Carlota.

He honed his golf skills in Ireland, playing out of Maynooth University, but tasted the first victory of his career back in 2011 on Portuguese soil where he won the Portuguese Foursome Championship with his brother Tomas.

Traditionally, this course plays easier than others on tour and since 2015 it has played to an average of -1.3 strokes to par in total - the perfect setting for a young, local favourite to make his debut on the European Tour.

Joao Carlota

Those are our stats guru's picks, but did he do enough to convince you? Add them to your European Tour Daily Fantasy Game and your line-up in the Fantasy Race to Dubai before the action begins on Thursday.

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