With the PGA Tour season concluding last week in Atlanta, we head across the pond where the DP World Tour gets the spotlight.
Heading to Crans Montana in the Swiss Alps, this venue provides some of the best views all year.
Tight and tree-lined fairways line the property with small green complexes as targets. Tournament officials generally resort to tricky pin positions as another lever to help keep the scores at a reasonable level.
Small greens and tricky pins put an emphasis on smart approach play while short game will surely be tested by week’s end.
There are some monster DFS prize pools this week so let’s run through one course-fit angle to see what golfers might like the layout.
Short Course Stars
Crans-sur-Sierre is about as short as it gets when it comes to course length for a pro event.
Checking out the scorecard we see a par 70 that plays to just 6,808 yards. That is very short by modern-day standards. Then you factor in the altitude and this course becomes very, very short.
Here are the top performers in adjusted strokes gained per round when playing short courses, over the last two years:
Yannik Paul
Alexander Bjork
Ludvig Aberg
Matt Fitzpatrick
Ryo Hisatsune
Jordan Smith
Robert Macintyre
Ewen Ferguson
Adrien Saddier
Calum Hill
Masahiro Kawamura
Joost Luiten
Adrian Otaegui
Simon Forsstrom
Adrian Meronk
We can also look at performance versus baseline to see who shows the largest increase in performance compared to their typical scores:
Daan Huizing
Yannik Paul
Calum Hill
Masahiro Kawamura
Renato Paratore
Adrien Saddier
Ewen Ferguson
Ryo Hisatsune
Ludvig Aberg
Jeff Winther
Robin Sciot-Siegrist
David Ravetto
Simon Forsstrom
Kiradech Aphibarnrat
Soren Kjeldsen
Overlap List: names that show up on both lists include Yannik Paul, Ludvig Aberg, Ryo Hisatsune, Ewen Ferguson, Adrien Saddier, Calum Hill, Masahiro Kawamura, and Simon Forsstom.
Paul primed for mountain golf
Yannik Paul enters the week ranked 11th in the Race to Dubai rankings. It’s been a steady season for the German who has six top 10s to his name in 2023. Recently, he’s twirled top-25 finishes in four of his last six worldwide starts. Also working in his favor this week will be his comfort in altitude. Paul attended the University of Colorado so he’s no stranger to mountain golf. Despite the lack of course history at this event, Paul should be in his comfort zone.
Trends converge for Calum Hill
The young Scot arrives with top-25 finishes in three of his last five starts, including a T-25 at the elevated Scottish Open. It’s been a good summer after a slow start to the 2023 campaign. Hill also landed a T-7 finish at Crans last year in his tournament debut. With good recent results and a big finish at the course, trends are coming together nicely for Hill this week.
