ISPS Handa World Invitational 2021: Form stats for this week's European Tour event in Northern Ireland

After successive tournaments in Scotland, England and Wales, the European Tour returns to the island of Ireland for this week's ISPS Handa World Invitational.

The seven-week 'British Isles Swing' opened its account at Mount Juliet Estate, County Kilkenny, in early July, and the players now head north of the border to arrive at Galgorm Castle in County Antrim.

However, this week's event will be staged over two courses, and held concurrently with a tournament on the European Ladies Tour.

Galgorm Castle is the host venue, although competitors will also play 18 holes at nearby Massereene Golf Club.

Both events will feature 144 players and have identical pots of prize money.

Over Thursday and Friday, the men and women will play one round at each venue, before the weekend action takes place solely at Galgorm.

A second cut occurs on Saturday evening, ahead of the finale on Sunday. The traditional Friday cut will involve the top-60 players and ties, while the second cut after 54 holes reduces the field to 35 and ties.

Course history

Galgorm made its debut on the European Tour in September of last year when it staged Ireland's national open.

Just three weeks earlier, the same course had hosted an event on the Challenge Tour, with both of these tournaments won by Americans.

Tyler Koivisto triumphed on the Challenge Tour, while John Catlin won the more prestigious Irish Open.

Challenge Tour history

Galgorm Castle in Ballymena has been part of the Challenge Tour rota since 2013.

Designed by Simon Gidman and opened in 1997, this parkland course is laid out close to the rivers of Maine and Braid, and located around 25 miles north of Belfast. The venue has five lakes, with water coming into play on 12 holes.

Meanwhile Massereene, which is also a picturesque parkland course, was built close to the banks of Lough Neagh and is considerably older than Galgorm.

Established in 1895, Massereene has lush tree-lined fairways, smallish greens and is approximately 200 yards shorter than the host course.

Accuracy is likely to hold a greater importance than length this week, as both venues are fairly tight.

On the tee

With world No 85 Andy Sullivan the highest-ranked pro teeing-up, the field for this week's tournament is mediocre at best.

Sullivan has enjoyed a decent run in recent weeks and usually performs well at parkland venues.

Latest odds for this week's tournament at Galgorm Castle

In tournaments such as these, in-form pros who spend most of their time on the Challenge Tour, will fancy a crack at beating run-of-the-mill regulars from the main European Tour.

Spaniard Santiago Tarrio belongs in this category. He's currently ranked 126 in the world, and has enjoyed a fantastic year so far, with two victories and four other top-five finishes since early June.

He also tied-seventh in the Challenge Tour event at Galgorm Castle last year.

Olympic reject

One golfer with something to prove is Wil Besseling, who has posted four top-20 finishes from his most recent six European Tour outings.

The 35-year-old 'qualified' for this week's men's event in Tokyo, but was unable to take his place on the starting line because the Dutch Olympic Committee had set their own qualification standard.

They insisted that golfers who wanted to compete in Japan needed to be ranked inside the world's top 100 by end of qualifying.

Another Dutchman Joost Luiten, who is not playing at either tournament this week, voiced his anger at the rule.

He complained that his own country's Olympic Committee "understand little about golf. It is common for golfers to win tournaments from outside the top 100 in the world."

Finally, Jacques Kruyswijk has played pretty solidly on both the European and Challenge tours this year.

The South African is enjoying a consistent run right now and tied-10th at Celtic Manor on Sunday, so is definitely a strong E/W chance.

Note: The Challenge Tour event at Galgorm Castle in 2017 consisted of 54 holes of strokeplay, with the qualifiers contesting one day of Super Six Matchplay on Sunday. In 2019, one round was played at Massereene. There were two tournaments at Galgorm in 2020 - one on the Challenge Tour (1), the other on the European Tour (2).

Twitter: Andy Swales@GolfStatsAlive

MC* - Missed Additional 54-Hole Cut

Note: List Contains Leading Reserves