Andrew's Hangzhou Open (HPT) Preview

More will follow on the Korn Ferry Tour completion, when I have time to write a season review and to look ahead to next year (and when I’ve stopped screaming into a pillow about Sandy Scott’s final round,) but those boys are finished for the year now. Well, S.H. Kim isn’t – he’s playing in the Japanese Open, which is hardcore. The KFT schedule is done, at any rate, and we should turn our attention to the second half of the Chinese double-header that lead us to the finale of the Hotel Planner Tour.

The Tournament

It’s sometimes hard to avoid these previews becoming a bit “call and response.” Come on, guys, we all know the drill by now. It’s a Jack Nicklaus course, so what does that mean? Easy  (if long) driving course, challenging second shots, bunkers and water on approach, undulating greens often set above the course. Well… yeah. That’s the deal this week. For this tour, at first blush 7,307 yards for a standard par-72 looks lengthy, but if you can take driver without much punishment, and you can, it becomes a bit of an accuracy test. That’s what we can expect in the second edition of this Hangzhou Classic.

Last year, Connor Purcell, definitely more of an approach player than a blaster, won this to ensure he’d take a DPWT card, ahead of Jack Senior, Oliver Lindell and Angel Ayora. It gives a sense of what we can expect – and with a winning score of -18 you can see that it wasn’t overly taxing. With warm, dry and calm conditions throughout, it might yet be easier this year. 

The field is essentially the same as last week’s, and the players coming here with good results are certainly a good place to start – this isn’t a dramatically different course. I will be looking for more approach play excellence and I’m less worried about prowess from the tee, but it is similar. 

The Selections

I suspect that we’re going to see a number of favourites to the top of the leaderboard this week (I actually think that’s true in all the tournaments this week except, perhaps, the DPWT event, but that’s another story for another blog) and I’m taking two shorter-priced golfers together with one outsider. First on my list is Stefano Mazzoli who needs one more decent week to ensure he wins a first DPWT card, and who is ideally suited to this test. He comes here in scintillating form, having missed the cut in his home event (the Italian Challenge) as a lone blot, making every other cut since June and with three top tens in his last four starts, including eighth last week. He played much of last year on the Asian Tour (and was sixth at the tricky and second-shot focused Hong Kong Open in a classy field, among notable results) and will doubtless have had this event circled for a while. He can follow Renato Paratore to make an Italian double in China.

If he doesn’t I think Davis Bryant is the likeliest to spoil the party. The young American won a DPWT card with a low status at Q-school and has played well in a few HPT starts to make up a full season, including 13^th last week. He’s also showed that his approach game is DPWT class with some decent performances, highlighted by fourth at the BMW International and, perhaps more relevantly, 13^th at the British Masters at the Belfry. He’s 33^rd on the Road to Majorca standings so needs a hot finish but this might be his best route to regaining his DPWT card, something he certainly deserves.

Among the outsiders, Julian Perico is just about the only golfer who made any appeal. The young Peruvian has not done a huge amount on this tour since winning an HPT card at Q-school but will enjoy this orthodox irons test. The former Arkansas Razorback is far from the biggest or most powerful but he’s gone well on tests of skill like this (he was sixth in Delhi at a tight course, and ninth in the Dutch Futures more recently) and although he narrowly missed the cut last week he is playing his best golf late in the season and could easily pop up at a price.

·       Stefano Mazzoli, 16/1, 2pts win, Bet365

·       Davis Bryant, 25/1, 2pts win, Bet365

·       Julian Perico, 100/1, 1pt e/w, ¼ odds 5 places, Bet365