Czech Masters: Two picks in Prague at 79/1

• New venue awaits in Prague

• First time winners have a great record

• Read my FedEx St Jude Championship preview here

• Get a FREE bet every time your team scores a goal in August!

Tournament History

First staged in 2014, the Czech Masters is one of the newer events on the DP World Tour and this is only the tenth edition after the tournament was one of those lost to the pandemic in 2020.

The Albatross Golf Resort in Prague hosted the first nine editions but we've got a change of venue this year with the tournament moving to the Kyle Philips designed PGA National OAKS Course in Prague.

Venue

PGA National OAKS Prague, Prague, Czech Republic

Course Details

Par 72, 7, 592 yards

The OAKS Prague was designed by Kyle Philips.

The first nine holes opened in 2019, and the full 18 course was opened in the summer of 2020.

As usual, there's no information about the venue on the DP World Tour website and nothing of note on the course's website apart from the hole-by-hole guide here.

There are various videos on YouTube that will give you a feel for the course.

Described as a parkland course with bentgrass greens, the OAKS doesn't look as linksy as a traditional Philips track but the bunkering looks typical of a Philips design.

Weather Forecast

TV Coverage

Live on Sky Sports all four days, starting at noon on Thursday in the UK.

First Nine Winners with Pre-event Exchange Prices

2014 - Jamie Donaldson -14 12.011/1
2015 - Thomas Pieters -20 80.079/1
2016 - Paul Peterson -15 1000.0999/1
2017 - Haydn Porteous -13 55.054/1
2018 - Andrea Pavan -20 60.059/1
2019 - Thomas Pieters -19 22.021/1
2020 - Event Cancelled
2021 - Johannes Veerman -15 34.033/1
2022 - Max Kieffer -16 80.079/1 (54-holes)
2023 - Todd Clements -22 700.0699/1

Course form to consider

The designer, Kyle Philips, is something of a modern-day links layout specialist and even the Philips-designed tracks that aren't described as links courses that have been used on the DP World Tour (see below) have seen strong links players prevail.

In addition to the Grove, which hosted the British Masters in 2016, won by Alex Noren, and the WGC- American Express in 2006, won by Tiger Woods, and Kingsbarns, which is one of the three courses used in rotation at the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship, Philips has also been responsible for five other tracks used on the DP World Tour...

Philips designed the Dundonald Links, which hosted the Scottish Open in 2017, the PGA Sweden National, which held the 2014 and 2015 editions of what is now the Scandinavian Mixed (formerly the Nordea Masters) and he also designed both the Verdura Golf and Spa, which hosted all four editions of the now defunct Sicily Open between 2011 and 2018. The KLM Open was staged at Bernardus between 2021 and 2023 and Philips also designed the Yas Links which hosted the last edition of the Abu Dhabi Championship in January last year.

Given Noren won both the British Masters and the Nordea Masters (2015) at Kyle Philips designed venues, and that the 2022 KLM Open winner, Victor Perez, also won the Abu Dhabi Championship eight months later, form in any of the events listed above may well be worthwhile as it appears that form at different Philips tracks crosses over.

Is There an Identikit Winner?

When Jamie Donaldson won the inaugural edition of the Czech Masters ten years ago, he was winning on the DP World Tour for the third time and Haydn Porteous had won the Joburg Open in his native South Africa a few months before he won this event in 2017 but Thomas Pieters, Paul Peterson, Andrea Pavan, Johannes Veerman, Max Kieffer and last year's winner, Todd Clements, all won their first DP World Tour titles in this event.

The 2016 winner, Paul Peterson, went off at 1000.0999/1 and it's a wonder last year's victor didn't reach that price given his form.

Clements came into the event with form figures reading MC-MC-MC-62-MC and his only previous top 20 finish on the DP World Tour was an off-the pace tied 11^th at the Open de Portugal back in September 2020.

He was said to be inspired by the victory of his friend, Daniel Brown, the week before at the ISPS Handa World Invitational but he was impossible to spot before the off and this looks like an event where you can take a chance with one or two longshots. Especially given we're at a new venue this time around.

In-Play Tactics

Obviously, with no course form to go on, it's impossible to know whether the OAKS will prove to be a frontrunners course or one that might suit players coming from off the pace and any sort of draw bias looks unlikely too.

The weather forecast predicts two very equal days on Thursday and Friday but as always on the DP World Tour, and very often on the PGA Tour, taking on odds-on shots in-running will probably pay dividends.

As detailed in the Debrief, we've just witnessed a late collapse by Max Greyserman at the Wyndham Championship, where he traded at as short as 1.061/18 and most week's on the DP World Tour we see at least two players trade at odds-on at some stage.

Market Leaders

Some of the field have been playing on the Challenge Tour, some have been plying their trade in South Africa and as Matt Cooper highlights in his each-way piece, Andy Sullivan finished second in last week's International Series England on the Asian Tour, but the majority of the field have had plenty of time off.

Regular DP World Tour members that didn't qualify for the Open Championship or travel to the States to play in either the Barracuda Championship or the ISCO Championship, have had more than a month off and that just adds to the complexity of an already difficult tournament to entangle.

The promising Tom McKibbin heads the market, but we haven't seen him in action since he finished 66^th in the Open, having missed the cut the week before in the Scottish Open, so it's impossible to know his wellbeing ahead of his first start in three weeks.

The English duo of Matthew Jordan and Richard Mansell are the next two in what is a wide-open market and the fact that neither has won on the DP World Tour yet is arguably a plus given how many first-time winners have won the event but I'm more than happy to swerve them both.

Selections

Paris-born Frenchman, Frederic Lacroix, hasn't played since finishing 20^th in the BMW International Open at the start of July but he may well be inspired by watching the Olympics and this course might just suit him.

The DP World Tour site originally had the yardage for the OAKS Course recorded at just 6,960 yards but it's since been updated to list it at 7, 592 yards, suggesting the big hitters are going to enjoy themselves this week.

Lacroix regularly averages over 300 yards off the tee and as a Challenge Tour graduate in search of his first win on the DP World Tour, he looked a reasonable price at 80.079/1.

At the same price as Lacroix, the significantly busier Englishman, Brandon Robinson-Thompson looks fairly priced to keep his hot streak going.

With much of the field playing for the first time in weeks, Robinson-Thompson is playing his third event in as many weeks and he's been playing superbly.

The 31-year-old finished third in the Irish Challenge on the Challenge Tour a fortnight ago, having led by a stroke with a round to go but he put that disappointment behind him in fine style last week, winning the Scottish Challenge by a whopping eight strokes.

It's never easy to win back-to-back events but that's an unrivalled level of current form in this field and 80.079/1 looked too big.

Now read my FedEx St Jude Championship preview here

*You can follow me on Twitter @SteveThePunter