BMW International Open: Course form counts at Eichenried

• Putting and Par 4 Performance the stats to ponder

• Reasonable tournament for outsiders

• In-play drama expected again in Germany
  

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Tournament History

Just three weeks after Tom McKibbin's impressive victory at the Porsche European Open, the DP World Tour returns to Germany this week for the 34^th edition of the BMW International Open.

Since 2011, and prior to the pandemic, the tournament alternated between two venues - the Golf Club Gut Lärchenhof and the Golfclub München Eichenried (the event's permanent home between 1997 to 2011) but this year we're returning to the Golfclub München Eichenried for the fourth renewal in-a-row.

Venue

Golfclub München Eichenried, Munich, Germany.

Course Details

Par 72, 7,284 yards
Stroke index in 2022 - 70.75

Designed by Kurt Rossknecht and opened in 1989, Golfclub München Eichenried is a flat, tree-lined course with greens that usually run quite slowly. There are water hazards on 10 holes and scoring here is generally low - although as the course has matured and the trees have grown, it has lowered slightly. A 20-under-par score wouldn't be enough in the early years but players would gladly take that now and last year was the first time since 2009 that anyone went deeper than -19. Li Haotong and Thomas Pieters played off for the title after both men had posted -22.

There were a number of changes to the course before the 2019 edition of the event with the most significant change being the modification of all the greens. The course was lengthened but it didn't make an awful lot of difference. The winning score was just two strokes higher than it had been in 2017 and it averaged 71.46, compared to 71.67 two years earlier. Last year it averaged only 70.75.

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Weather

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TV Coverage

Live on Sky Sports all four days, starting at 11:30 on Thursday.

Last Seven Winners with Exchange Prices

• 2022 - Li Haotong -22 80.079/1 (playoff)
• 2021 - Viktor Hovland -19 8.88/1
• 2020 - Event Cancelled
• 2019 - Andrea Pavan -15 110.0109/1 (playoff)
• 2018 - Matt Wallace -10 44.043/1 (Golf Club Gut Lärchenhof)
• 2017 - Andres Romero -17 510.0509/1
• 2016 - Henrik Stenson -17 10.09/1 (Golf Club Gut Lärchenhof)
• 2015 - Pablo Larrazabal -17 60.059/1

What Will it Take to Win?

The 2017 winner here, Argentina's Andres Romero, was a tournament invite and he wasn't a member of the DP World Tour, so no stats were produced for him but I've looked at the stats for the last eight course winners, not including Romero, and here are their average rankings for the eight.

Driving Distance 36.75

Driving Accuracy 27.62

Greens In Regulation 14.25

Putting Average 21

Scrambling 19.25

Hitting it a long way used to be the secret to success here before the course matured and the trees grew but length is much less of a relevance here now and I'd favour accuracy off the tee over power.

Li ranked only 49^th for Driving Distance last year and David Horsey was able to win here ranking just 68^th for DD in 2010.

Li only ranked 42^nd for Driving Accuracy and neither driving metric appeared crucial 12 months ago but Horsey ranked seventh for Driving Accuracy and the runner-up that year, Ross Fisher, topped the DA stats. And a year later, Pablo Larrazabal won the title for the first time ranking second for DA so there's evidence to suggest being straight off the tee is a plus, but as Li demonstrated last year, keeping it straight off the tee hole-after-hole isn't imperative.

The first and second four years ago ranked second and first for Greens In Regulation, Els ranked first for GIR in 2013 and two years earlier, Larrazabal had ranked second when he took the title but he won the second of his two titles (seven years ago) ranking 32^nd for GIR so although it would be my idea of the best place to start statistically, it's clearly not a vital stat either. Li ranked 14^th and the 2022 winner, Viktor Hovland, ranked 10^th.

The 2009 winner, Nick Dougherty, ranked second for Putting Average and Larrazabal ranked 10^th a year later. On the next occasion the event was staged here, in 2013, the second and third had PA rankings of second and fourth but the winner, Ernie Els, ranked 50^th and the next three winners (excluding Romero) ranked 27^th, 35^th and 38^th but putting has been a key metric in the last two years.

The first four home 12 months ago ranked second, seventh, first and ninth for PA and the front three in 2021 ranked fourth, first and second.

Looking at the Strokes Gained data for the 2019, 2021 and 2022 editions here (the only renewals with SG data, it's a bit of a mixed bag.

Last year's playoff protagonists ranked first and second for SG-Tee to Green but the 2019 and 2021 winners ranked only 10^th and 15^th for that stat but they ranked seventh and first for SG - Putting.

If Pieters had got the better of Li in the playoff 12 months ago, the last four course winners would have played the par fours better than anyone else. Li ranked eighth for Par 4 Performance and David Howell was the only player in the field to better the winner, Larrazabal, in 2016. He played them in -11 to the Spaniard's -10.

Putting and par four scoring/performance look the metrics to concentrate on.

Is There an Identikit Winner?

Li had inconsistent 2022 form figures reading 12-MC-32-3-33-MC-6-26-MC-37-18 before he won here 12 months ago but like the previous seven course winners before him, he was winning for the first time that season, so being out of form hasn't been a barrier to success. And the two course winners before Hovland in 2021 were woefully out of form.

Andrea Pavan's best finish in his 12 starts prior to his victory here in 2019 had yielded just one top-20 and he'd missed five cuts, and Romero's form in 2017 was appalling.

In five worldwide starts, 71 was the best round score he'd achieved, and he'd missed every cut. Those two both went off at huge prices but like Li 12 months ago, the previous five course winners all had bits and pieces of form and they'd all finished at least fourth in a DP World Tour event earlier in the season.

Larrazabal had finished third at the Trophée Hassan II three months before his win here in 2015 but the other four had been placed more recently and within six weeks, so it's a bit of a mixed bag, although I certainly wouldn't put anyone backing a few outsiders.

Course form counts at Eichenried

This is a tricky event to evaluate but course form tends to stand up well - despite the last two results!

Li was playing here for the first time 12 months ago and the high-class Hovland won on debut in 2021 too but Thomas Bjorn and Pablo Larrazabal have both won here twice and Sergio Garcia has twice traded odds-on before eventually finishing second in both 2011 and 2017.

Winner's 54-hole Position and Exchange Price

• 2021 - Li Haotong - one stroke clear 4.03/1
• 2021 - Viktor Hovland - three strokes clear 1.292/7
• 2020 - Event Cancelled
• 2019 - Andrea Pavan T8th, trailing by four 50.049/1
• 2018 - Staged at Golf Club Gut Lärchenhof
• 2017 - Andres Romero T4th, trailing by three 32.031/1
• 2016 - Staged at Golf Club Gut Lärchenhof
• 2015 - Pablo Larrazabal T5th, trailing by five 22.021/1

In-Play Tactics

Li won wire-to wire last year (although it was far from straightforward) and Hovland was never far away in 2021. He sat tied for 18^th and four off the lead after round one but he was up to second at halfway and clear with a round to go.

In 2019, Pavan led after round one, before falling off the pace and rallying on Sunday and Ernie Els won wire-to-wire in 2013 but a fast start isn't imperative.

Back in 2006, Henrik Stenson beat Padraig Harrington and Retief Goosen in a playoff after the three had started the event with rounds of only 71, 70 and 73 respectively and except for Li, Ernie and Pavan, the closest to the front any winner has been after round one in the last 12 events here, is tied 6th (Niclas Fasth in 2007 and Romero five years ago).

Last year's losing playoff protagonist, Pieters, started slowly (tied 29^th - trailing by seven) and Matt Fitzpatrick was beaten in the playoff in 2019, having sat tied for 85^th after round one, so a slow start can definitely be overcome.

Despite last year's wire-to-wire win by Li, it's not an easy place to front run. Pieters was matched for plenty at odds-on before losing the playoff and even though he won comfortably in the end, it wasn't plain sailing for Hovland in 2022. Having drifted to 1.910/11 in-running on Sunday, he was fortunate that none of his closest pursuers played well and that his two-under-par 70 was easily enough.

Plenty of players have traded at a short price before flaking late on and in 2019 we saw four men trade at short odds without winning!

Martin Kaymer was matched at a low of 2.3211/8, Matt Wallace 2.01/1, Matthias Schwab 1.784/5 and the beaten playoff protagonist, Fitzpatrick, hit a low of 1.21/5!

It's hard to convert from the front here and we've seen winners come from as far as five strokes back but since 1997, no course winner had been outside the top eight places with a round to go. Romero, who trailed by three in fourth place five years ago, was a 32.031/1 chance with a round to go but after starting the final round with seven straight pars he was matched at a high of 190.0189/1! He finished the event with seven birdies in his last 11 holes so late drama here is not just a possibility, it's a regular occurrence.

Market Leaders

The classy pole, Adrian Meronk, is the clear favourite but he's hard to fancy after a fortnight in the States that yielded two missed cuts - at the Canadian Open and the US Open.

Prior to that, he finished fifth at the KLM Open and on his previous outing on the DP World Tour, he won the Italian Open. In-between the first and fifth he finished 40^th in the US PGA Championship, so a return to Europe and a very obvious drop in class should see a big improvement.

There's no reason for the course not to suit him but the fact that he's playing here for the first time can't be construed as a positive and I was more than happy to pass him by.

Rasmus Hojgaard appears to have recovered from the shoulder injury that hindered him over the winter and into spring and but his form is still inconsistent.

Like Meronk, Hojgaard contended at the KLM Open (finished third) but he was disappointing last time out at the European Open, where he finished 59^th - shooting rounds of 76-73-74-76.

This is Hojgaard's third appearance in the event and he'll be keen to improve on his 17^th on debut two years and his 36^th last year.

Germany's Yannik Paul, who won the Mallorca Open in October, is the third favourite but I'm more than happy to swerve him too.

The 29-year-old was third last time out in the Scandinavian Mixed but he has course form figures reading MC-32.

Selection

I was happy enough to take 36.035/1 about the two-time tournament winner, Pablo Larrazabal, despite his missed cut last week at the US Open.

In search of his fifth DP World Tour victory in 16 months and his third win in five starts, the 40-year-old Spaniard has turned himself into a winning machine.

His two-stroke victory in Korea at the end of April came on the back of a missed cut in Japan and he won the KLM Open at the end of May in impressive fashion after missing the cut at the US PGA Championship the week before so last week's weekend off could even be construed as a plus.

I backed him in-running at 25.024/1 in Korea and at 80.079/1 before the off at the KLM Open so he owes me absolutely nothing and he looks a very fair price.

As highlighted in the Find Me a 100 Winner column, I was hoping that the Scandinavian Mixed winner, Dale Whitnell, would drift to a triple-figure price.

He was a very impressive winner in Sweden and he's no bigger than 70/171.00 on the High Street so I was probably being a bit too optimistic but I'm happy to add him to the portfolio at 95.094/1.

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