BlogOmega European Masters Preview and Picks

The Buzz:

This is a special week in golf.  First, there is no PGA Tour event as there are 2 weeks before the plays in Napa.  With that, this is the year’s big event, and it’s nice to see it on the schedule by itself.  This event played in Switzerland has always had a tough time.  Since it’s up high in the 8,000-foot range, they can’t play it much later than the last week in September because it getting cold.  So for years, it was always a September staple, but that used to be a bad month with the FedExCup playoffs happening.  Now it’s in the first week of September and a perfect time just after the FedEx Cup playoffs.  The big surprise one player from the Tour Championship, Matt Fitzpatrick, made the 4,000-mile journey to play in this event.

With Viktor Hovland winning at East Lake, it brings up a tough question, who is the Player of the Year?  Frankly, it’s a tough question, and with Hovland winning the BMW and the Tour Championship, he is a very good candidate for that title.  Still, Hovland didn’t win a major, the same with Scottie Scheffler, while Jon Rahm won the Masters.  Looking at Rahm, he did win the Masters and was T-2nd at the British Open, but after he won four times, his season after finishing runner-up in Mexico and British was spotty, including playing terribly in the Playoffs as he was T-37th at the FedEx St. Jude, T-31st at the BMW and T-18th at the Tour Championship.  As for Scottie Scheffler did win twice in Phonix and the Players, along with 14 top-five finishes, with top-tens in three of the four majors.

Here is a list of their accomplishments for the year, I personally feel that Hovland, thanks to his playoff win, gets my nod.

Player                    Jon Rahm          Viktor Hovland             Scottie Scheffler

PGA Tour starts              20                         23                                     23

Wins                                4                           3                                       2

Top 10s                          10                           9                                     17

Major top 10s                 3                            2                                      3

Major wins                      1                            0                                      0

Official money          $16.5M                       $14.1M                        $21.0M

One of the best events in golf?

The European tour moves on to Switzerland and the Omega European Masters.  Let me take a few paragraphs to tell you that this is a special place and could be one of the most scenic stops in golf.  Of course, you’re going to say that Pebble Beach isn’t bad, but the Golf Club Crans-sur-Sierre has a special appeal that makes it as pretty as Pebble.  It’s the Pacific Ocean that makes Pebble so special, at Crans-sur-Sierre, it’s the scenic views of the Alps and the mountain tops of the Matterhorn and Mont Blanc that take your breath away.

Ever since the Golf Channel started showing European Tour golf in the late nineties, I have been a fan of several events, but the two that I have loved the most were the Dubai Desert Classic and the Omega European Masters.  I love watching them play golf from Dubai and Switzerland, so much that both became bucket places for me to go visit one day.  In 2011 I had a chance to join my wife on a trip to Switzerland and cross off one of those places off the list, Cans-sur-Sierre.

I saw it for the first time by accident.  I took a train from Venice to Geneva, and when the train was traveling between the Alps in the Rhone Valley, I saw what looked like structures at the top of one of those 8,000-foot mountains.  The closer I got, the more I realized they were big ten-story structures, but my feeble mind didn’t know what they were.  I asked the train conductor, and he said it was the ski resort Crans Montana, but that never registered in my mind that it was the community of Crans-sur-Sierre.  A couple of days later, my wife and I journeyed to see Crans-sur-Sierre, and that was when it hit me that those buildings that I saw from the train were the site of my bucket list location.

What strikes me about the golf course is that it’s in the middle of town.  It’s much smaller than you can imagine it being, but lovely anyway.  Walking the course, you go out to the fourth hole and feel on top of the world.  I don’t think there is a prettier hole in all of golf, the hole sits on top of the bluff, looking to the Southwest way above the Rhone Valley with the Alps in front of you.  Just an awesome sight and something that every golfer should experience.

History of Crans-sur-Sierre and changes to the course over the years:

The history of golf at Crans-sur-Sierra can be traced back to 1905. Arnold Lunn, who owned the Palace Hotel, was persuaded that the pastureland to the west of the hotel was ideal for a golf course. Two Englishmen, Freemantle and Gedge, were commissioned, and the first nine holes were opened in 1906, followed by the second nine in 1908.

The golf course was abandoned during World War I but was reopened in 1921 thanks to hoteliers Elysee Bonvin (Hotel du Golf) and Albert Bonvin (Beausejour). 1924 the Crans-sur-Sierre Golf Club was founded, with Rene Payot as its first President. Shortly after the opening, architect Harry Nicholson was commissioned to add improvements.

A large number of greens were remodeled, and additional bunkering was done, thus creating the overall layout at Plan-Bramois that remained unchanged until 1997. In 1995 Severiano Ballesteros was commissioned to make it more challenging for the professionals on the European Tour and even more attractive for the many golfers that visit this resort.

After two redesigns, the course opened with new greens with various contours and slopes, new tee boxes installed, and obstacles added or modified.

In 2013, it was announced that the course would undergo more renovation.  In the first year of a four-year project, the course’s 10th, 12th, 13th, and 17th holes have been renovated to make the course harder and more gallery-friendly.  Water will now come into play at the 10th, 12th, and 13th greens, making them more challenging.  For the 17th hole, a stream crosses the 17th fairway about at the landing zone, so drives will have to be more accurate.  With the changes to the 13th green, it now will have room for over 3,000 spectators to look down on the action.

For the 2015 tournament, all the bunkers on the front none were updated, and the fairways at 1, 2, and 4 were rebuilt.  The 9th hole has been redone with a new green that will be able to handle more people and be more attractive.  The 5th hole has been lengthened by 25 years, so it won’t be pushover as it was in past years.  One other major change, the 14th hole had 38 yards taken off, and the par was reduced from 71 to 70.  The hole will be a brute at 559 yards.

Close to six million dollars was spent on these changes over the four years, and since 2015 the course has played pretty much the same.

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

The key stat for the winner hitting lots of greens:

I don’t know if anyone noticed, but in the last 14 years that stats have been available for the European Masters, 3 of the winners have led that category (Alex Noren in 2009, Thomas Bjorn in 2011, and Richie Ramsay in 2012).  Now three other winners have been in 2nd in this category (David Lipsky in 2014, Danny Willett in 2015, and Mathew Fitzpatrick in 2018.), while in 2021, Rasmus Hojgaard was T-3rd.

I would still say that greens hit is an important category because even though Alex Noren was T-26th in greens hit when he won in 2016, for the year, he was 18th on the European Tour.  But that didn’t hold up with Sebastian Soderberg in his 2019 win.  He was T-33rd for the week, but he was 136th in Greens in Regulation for the year.  Last year Thriston Lawrence was T-11th in Greens hit in Switzerland, and 26th for the year.  Still, hitting a lot of greens is very important for this week.

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

Length is not an issue on this course since at just under 6,850 yards, it’s one of the shortest on the European Tour.  But of those at the top of the leaderboard the last ten years, hitting fairways has mixed results, with four players in the top ten, with 2018 champion Matthew Fitzpatrick leading that stat.  But last year’s winner, Thriston Lawrence, was T-63rd in that stat.  The course is tight, with a lot of trees running along the fairways, so if you miss the fairway, the odds are you will be behind a tree, so yes, you have to be straight.

Another thing to think about.  Crans-sur-Sierre is at 8,000 feet, so that the ball will travel about 10 to 15% further than sea-level courses.  So the 6,900-yard figure is misleading, the course will play close to 6,200 yards for this year.

Water hazards come into play on 6 holes, all of the back nine.  The course does have a lot of undulation, and winds do pop up in the afternoon coming up the valley.  Weather can change drastically because of its location, and several past events have had fog problems.  For this year, the weather will be nice the first two days, with highs in the mid-60s and no rain.  But the weekend will see some change, with showers and temperatures in the low 70s, but there is going to be a lot of rain on Saturday.  So look for a sturdy winner who can play under all conditions.

There are nine events left before the tour ends at the DP World Tour Championship in mid-November.