A review of the three tournaments that ended October 9th.

We have three tournaments to cover from last week.

Spanish Open:

Jon Rahm equalled Seve’s record of three Spanish Open wins on Sunday. A comfortable six strokes win got it done and landed the 9/4 available pre-tournament. It does look like easy money now and a good result for the big hitters.
In second place was Matthieu Pavon of France. A good scoring week for the Frenchman. Min Woo Lee finished third. He was the only one pushing Rahm going into Sunday but a 68 on a free scoring course does not get it done. In joint fourth were the inconsistent Zander Lombard and Molinari number two, Eduardo.
Our two outright selections, Rafa Cabrero Bello and Adri Arnaus both missed the cut. Most unexpected and very galling from two home country golfers who have good previous form at this course! Our top twenty finish selection, Pablo Larrazabal, another home country golfer, was going well at halfway. But a 77 on Saturday killed him off.
Not a great tournament and it fell into Rahm’s lap as he outclassed the field. Tommy Fleetwood continues to disappoint despite going off as second favourite.

Shriners Children’s Open:

Another absolutely gutting Sunday for us, this time on the tee of the final hole! Patrick Cantlay and Tom Kim stood on the final tee tied at twenty-four under par. After driving well all week Cantlay then hit a duffer into the rocks and could not recover and gave up three strokes to Kim. We do need our Sunday luck to turn, as it has been off for most of 2022.
So, the twenty-year-old phenom Joo Hyung (Tom) Kim has his second win on tour in 2022. Tom went off at 22/1 pre-tournament and is being touted as the next great thing. We shall see? So Cantlay ended up tied for second place with Matthew Nesmith. In tied fourth place was our top twenty finish selection Tom Hoge and SH Kim, another South Korean towards the top of the leader board and Mito Pereira. NeSmith scored really well, and this should give him the confidence to challenge for a tour win.
Defending champion Sung Jae Im finished in seventh place. Always one to watch on this course. Jason Day found some form for a tied eighth finish, along with another South Korean Si Woo Kim. Perhaps the warm weather in Vegas suited Day in managing all of his ongoing injuries?
Our 200/1 selection Harry Hall did get into the places at one stage on Sunday. But his score was overtaken late on, and he finished tied fifteenth. The inform Max Home finished tied twentieth on a course that he has previously struggled with.
Harris English showed a semblance of form recovery last week. He finished with a sixty-five and ended tied twenty eighth. Thomas Detry has been in good form recently, but he came unstuck here. Detry is not one to trust really. He carded a seventy-three on Friday and seventy-four on Sunday. Kurt Kitiyama was four under par early on Thursday. But then it went all wrong and he missed the cut.

LIV Golf Bangkok:

I did not see any of this one except for a twenty-minute highlights video. The fifty-four-hole tournament was won by the twenty-two-year-old Spaniard Eugenio Lopez Chacarra . A three-stroke win for the U.S. college golfer and a $4M first prize. His first two rounds of sixty-five and sixty-three gave him a five-stroke lead going into Sunday in Thailand. He hung on to his lead and a sixty-nine proved good enough.
Patrick Reed finished second and scored well all week and may be one to watch now? There was a three-way tie for third place. Richard Bland, Paul Casey and Shiwan Kim of South Korea. They finished four strokes behind the winner.
Harold Varner the third was a further stroke back, in a tie with James Piot. Plenty of LIV’s big stars struggled in Bangkok. Our initial selection Abraham Ancer played solidly without being able to find a low round. He finished tied tenth.
Other notables – Bryson DeChambeau finished fourteenth, Dustin Johnson was in the tie for fifteenth place and third favourite Joachin Niemann could only tie twentieth. Niemann did finish with a sixty-five when it was all too late. Cam Smith, who was our main selection, had a nightmare all week and finished tied forty first place.

We will be back on Tuesday with initial selections for this week’s tournaments.

Good luck Martin