BlogNordea Masters Preview and Picks

The Buzz:

After a good BMW PGA in which the players loved all the changes to Wentworth, it’s back to what is regular on the European Tour, with mostly tour regulars playing.  It’s off to Sweden for a tournament which had its origins in the late 1960s with the Volvo Open, which became the Scandinavian Enterprise Open in 1973, when it also became the first Swedish stop on the European Tour schedule. In 1991, the SEO merged with the PLM Open, with the resulting tournament being called the Scandinavian Masters.  The Scandinavian Masters is currently the only European Tour event to be held in Scandinavia.  A total of seven venues have hosted the Nordea Masters and two players have won the title three times – Lee Westwood, who returns this year, and Colin Montgomerie.  Other names on the rich list of past winners include Sir Nick Faldo (1992), former World Number Ones Luke Donald (2004) and Adam Scott (2003), and US Open winner Graeme McDowell (2002).

What about Barseback G & CC:

Located 20 miles north of Malmo, Sweden which is just across the bay from Copenhagen Denmark.  The first nine holes at Barseback Golf & Country Club was completed in 1969. The second nine followed the year after. The course was named the Old Course, in 1992 Barsebäck Golf & Country Club hosted the Scandinavian Masters for the first time. Since then another full course and a 9-hole executive course were built and a unique course was created especially for this, mainly from the Old Course together with parts of the New Course. This arrangement proved so popular, a further 12 European tour events (this event 9 times) and the 2003 Solheim Cup have been held on the course since then. In 2003 the “competition course” became a permanent fixture named the Masters Course. The course is on dunes that overlooks the Oresund Sound and is a delightful mix of wooded holes ringed with wind sculpted pines, open fairway holes and beautiful links holes overlooking Oresund. Barsebäck is the home club of Henrik Stenson who was made and honorary member in 2007.

The last time the European Tour played at Barseback was in 2009 when Ricardo Gonzalez beat Jamie Donaldson by two shots.  Before that Marc Warren won in 2006 when he beat Robert Karlson with a par on the second playoff hole.

Here are some of the secrets of what it takes to play well at the Nordea Masters:

Key stat for the winner:

A great links course in which weather will play a factor, look for high scores which has been the norm.  The last time the course was used was in 2009 when Ricardo Gonzalez was 6 under par which included a third round 77.  This is a course in which weather does play a factor in things.  For this week the weather will be different each day, with partly cloudy skies and rain on Saturday.  Temperature should be in the 60s each doay but again wind will hamper the players.

Here are some more key stats to look to for this week:

• Off of past events played at Barseback, there isn’t one key stat that a person dominated to win.  Unfortunately since we only have one year to look at data, 2009, it’s a bit misleading.  But I can say this, most courses by the sea is played well by those that are good ball strikers and are not normally good putters becasue of the slow greens.  If you are looking at players that did well in 2009 and playing this year, Jamie Donaldson was 2nd in 2009 and playing this year.  Marcus Fraser, Lee Slattery and Thorbjorn Olesen was T-4th in 2009 and playing this week.  One person I wouldn’t think will do well is 2009 winner Ricardo Gonzalez who is a part-time European Tour player and hasn’t been in the top-ten on the European Tour since 2013.
• U.S. Open qualifying was Monday which meant that players had to go through a tough 36 holes at Walton Heath, then board a play for Copenhagen.  Look at the results and you can see that several players are in the field in Sweden.  Look for guys like Alexander Levy, who was T-3rd in qualifying and T-3rd in 2015 to be in the mix this week in Sweden.
• One last key, look for players that have done well of late, so a guy like Alex Noren and Nicolas Colsaerts has a lot going for them.  After playing bad for the last couple of months Henrik Stenson onlayed has to be a very guarded pick since he has played really bad the last couple of weeks.  Now many will be behind Stenson with his Swedish roots, but it’s probably best if you are looking for a “Swedish winner” to look at Alex Noren who won last week at the BMW PGA.