The Tips returns this week with more expert insight to help you choose your Fantasy team as the DP World Tour heads to Doha for the Commercial Bank Qatar Masters.
How it works: Every week a panel of industry-leading golf tipsters and special guests provide their expert tips for the week ahead.
Whether it’s making picks to update your Fantasy Team or keep your eye on the betting markets, our experts provide their insights ahead of action taking place on both the DP World Tour and on the PGA TOUR.
Joining regular host Ollie Silverton this week are golf writers Matt Cooper and Tom Jacobs, who outline their picks and reasons for both tournaments on this weeks podcast, which you can find here: https://linktr.ee/dpworldtour.
If you have not done so already, you can sign up to play the official 2023 DP World Tour Fantasy game and submit your six-man team before round one gets under way on Thursday: https://fantasy.dpworldtour.com/
The 2023 season-long winner will win a trip to the DP World Tour Championship in Dubai next year, enjoy a lesson with a DP World Tour professional and a round of golf on the Earth Course at Jumeirah Golf Estates. For more information on this amazing prize and others, read here.
Qatar Masters
There's a lot on the line during this week in Doha, which represents the last event of the regular season and the last chance for players to secure their playing rights.
With the top 116 players on the Race to Dubai Rankings retaining their card for next season by the end of this week, there is plenty to play for for a lot of players in the field. It's the first time this event has held this significance, with a change from March to October in the schedule.
Renowned as a windy venue, our experts don't think the change in month will affect how the course plays this week. So what do they think you need to do well here?
"This is a tournament that has favoured people who've got very good records in The Open," said Cooper.
"First of all, ball control in the wind is a very important factor. Paul Lawrie said some of these holes need you to run the ball in rather than actually land it on the greens. I think that's like a sort of settler that then it makes sense that good links performers perform well here."
"I think there's going to be a fairly low scoring of 15 or 16 under. It has pretty average size fairways and unlike some of the other Middle Eastern courses the rough is not very penal.
"The fact this follows back-to-back Spanish events is really important because Spanish players do play really well here. We've obviously seen those play well over the last fortnight and also South Africans have played so well in Spain and then so well here. So there could be a kind of good movement in the schedule for the players that did enjoy those kinds of Spanish tests and South African tests later in the year.
"All in all, I think it's just a test that requires enough good approaches to set up the putts that you need to make. I think that there's not necessarily one factor that's going to stand out, but I think if it is, it's going to be just a strong tee to green game."
As for who they think will excel? In their first outright picks, Cooper selected Matt Wallace, while Jacobs opted for Thorbjørn Olesen.
Matt Wallace
MC: Matt Wallace has already had a win on the PGA TOUR this year, admittedly in an opposite field event, but he's in a nice trot of form. And that victory that he did have, it was at the Corales Puntacana Championship, which is a blustery seaside track, a little bit like this and he's sort of got some nice form on blustery tracks. His first win on the DP World Tour came at Morgado in the Open de Portugal. He was sixth in the Dunhill Links a couple of weeks ago. He has finished second at Hillside and also second at Fairmont St Andrews. He's got a very good record in the Middle East. He won a couple of tournaments there on the third tier when he was making his very rapid progress to the top of the game. He's also finished second at Emirates Golf Club and at the Fire Course at Jumeirah and also he finished second at the Earth Course. He's played the course once and he did so when he was in a bit of poor form in the sort of winter of 2018/2019 and he finished 19th then. That was his best result for a while and he really kicked off from there, and won in his next start at the Indian Open. It was the first of three wins in 2019. So he doesn't have great memories but goodish memories of the course and then adding to his form and adding the fact that he's got lots of wins, he's also got lots of seconds and thirds so he gets himself into contention. The last time he was up against a field like this at a course like this, I would argue was probably the Czech Masters at Albatross, and he finished second there too.
Thorbjørn Olesen
TJ: I just think he's the most rock solid at the top and is a seven-time DP World Tour winner. When you look at where else he's won, the Sicilian Open gets a little bit windy there, Perth I'm sure there's some wind in the sand about times. Obviously he's won the Dunhill Links ahead of Brooks Koepka. So he’s got a really good CV of playing windy conditions. Then you come over to his course record here and he missed the cut and then finished 59th where it was reduced to 54 holes, but then he went 22nd on his third start. He was actually fifth after 36 holes and then he's got a third, second and 12th since in Doha.
So his form at the golf course is one of the best in this field without the win of course. He is just playing really solidly and when you listen in commentary sometimes they do offer these stats and the fact that he was leading greens and regulation for the week. That's not the first time this season, he's been excellent with his irons for the majority of the season. So his strokes gained approach and tee to green game is great right now.
Fantasy Insight: As it stands, Matt Wallace is the favourite for players of our Fantasy Game this week, featuring in 21.71% of teams. Other popular players include Matthieu Pavon (17.65%) and Aaron Rai (17.08%). Of those, both Wallace and recent first-time DP World Tour winner Pavon feature among our expert picks.
Comparatively, some of our other expert choices feature much further down the ranks in terms of players chosen, with Adri Arnaus in 5.50% teams.
| EXPERT | PLAYER | REASON |
|---|---|---|
| Matt Cooper | Matt Wallace | He's in a nice trot of form. And that victory that he did have, it was at the Corales Puntacana Championship, which is a blustery seaside track, a little bit like this and he's sort of got some nice form on blustery tracks. His first win on the DP World Tour came at Morgado in the Open de Portugal. He was sixth in the Dunhill Links a couple of weeks ago. He has finished second at Hillside and also second at Fairmont St Andrews. He's got a very good record in the Middle East. He won a couple of tournaments there on the third tier when he was making his very rapid progress to the top of the game. He's also finished second at Emirates Golf Club and at the Fire Course at Jumeirah and also he finished second at the Earth Course. |
| Mike Lorenzo-Vera | He ought to be fairly confident coming to this golf. He's played it six times. He was fourth when one shot outside the playoff in 2017, 10th the year later, third in 2019. He hasn't played it since, but he really likes blustery golf courses. He comes from the Atlantic coast in France and was brought up playing golf on a blustery golf course. His win that got him onto the European tour in the first place was at San Domenico in Italy. It has a very similar sort of setup to Doha. Also he was ninth in Madrid and then he shot a 65 in round three last week, which got him into the weekend and pretty much secured his card. | |
| Adri Arnaus | I think he's a really good player, and he's got a fantastic record in the Middle East. He got a win there on the Challenge Tour. He's got three top fifteens at Emirates Golf Club, three top twenties in Abu Dhabi. He's been third at Royal Greens and has three top tens at the Earth Course. He was tied 14th on debut at Doha and he was the joint first round leader. Last week he was tied19th. I think this week could be big for him. | |
| Matthew Jordan | We all know about his links record, and he was 13th last week. He's got better and better as the weeks have gone on since he had his fantastic week at The Open. He was also fifth on debut at this golf course and he was the 54 hole joint leader. | |
| Tom Jacobs | Thorbjørn Olesen | His form at the golf course is one of the best in this field without the win of course. And then the current form is just great. He is just playing really solidly and when you listen in commentary sometimes they do throughout these stats and the fact that he was leading greens and regulation for the week and that's not the first time this season, he's been excellent with his irons for the majority of the season. So his strokes gained approach and tee to green game is great right now. |
| Sean Crocker | He was fourth in stroke gained approach last week, sixth in Tee to Green. He made both of his cuts in Spain, 20th and 43rd, which in isolation is not great, but he's definitely on the right track. On his debut here he was second going into Sunday but finished 28th due to a bit of a blow up. But he’s a winner now, and I just think there's just so much from him still to come. He’s shown his ball striking ability the week before, and I think he'll like the conditions if it does get a little bit windy. He's shown that in the past. So I think he’s got all the tools to be successful this week. | |
| Matthieu Pavon | Someone we should be keeping an eye on again this week. I think the fact that he continued his good form from a win and finished ninth last week after a slow start suggests to me that Pavan can put together another win. He comes to a course where he's played reasonably well. He also comes to a part of the world where he's played well in the past and also he's got that kind of correlative form. We talked about Mauritius Open, he's been second. Portugal Masters gets talked about a lot and he's been second there, he's been second at the Scottish Open, sixth at the Dunhill Links. I just think he's the type of player that could go on and win quite quickly afterwards. | |
| Wil Besseling | He doesn’t get in contention a lot, but he's threatened to do it over his last five or six events or so. Go back to August at the Czech Masters, he was fourth after 54 holes and finished 14th and then the last two weeks in Spain, he was second after round one and round two at the Open de Espana finishing 35th, and last week fourth after round one, 10th going into the final round before finishing 26th. Suggests he’s capable of scoring at the moment. He’s in better form than the numbers suggest. 21st on debut here last year, I think he’s someone that could get himself in to the mix. |
