Open de France 2025: Tree-lined track specialist chanced at 64/1

• Last four winners have been long-shots

• Greens In Regulation likely to be the key stat

• Up with the pace is the place to be at Nom-La-Bretèche

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What happened last week? Scottie and Alex go in again

The 36 and 54-hole leader Ben Griffin kicked off round four of the Procore Championship with three birdies in-a-row and was matched at a low of 1.444/9. But he hit the buffers after that and was soon reeled in by the world number one, Scottie Scheffler.

After a slow start to the event, the 3.412/5 pre-event favourite Scheffler hit a high of 18.017/1 and trailing by eight, he was a 10/111.00 chance at halfway, but after an eight-under-par 64 in round three, trailed Griffin by just two with 18 to play.

The market couldn't split the pair overnight, but Scheffler shortened up from 2.747/4 to around 6/42.50 before round four began and, as is so often the case, the market was right.

Scheffler has now won six of the last 12 events he's played in.

Over on the DP World Tour, just three weeks after winning the British Masters for a second time, pre-event 55.054/1 chance, Alex Noren, won his second BMW PGA Championship title in a playoff.

The 43-year-old Swede, who trailed by three at halfway, was tied for the lead with a round to go with Frenchman, Adrien Saddier, and he was trading at 2.915/8.

Saddier, who lost to Noren at the first extra hole, was matched at a low of 1.528/15 but he wasn't the only player to trade at a short price.

Alex Noren Adrien Saddier

Every shot of the play-off at Wentworth. #BMWPGA | #RolexSeries pic.twitter.com/8vahMKQHro

-- DP World Tour (@DPWorldTour) September 14, 2025

The playoff protagonists were the only two to go odds-on this year but there were trading opportunities aplenty again at Wentworth and it remains a great event to take a chance on a few outsiders from off the pace.

Viktor Hovland was matched at a low of 2.111/10 during round three, Ludvig Aberg hit 2.6213/8, Tyrrell Hatton, who I backed at halfway at 120.0119/1, was matched at as low as 3.052/1 on Sunday. Kristoffer Reitan, who was readily available at around 250.0249/1 after the third round, hit a low of 18.535/2 after a fast start on Sunday.

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Tournament History

France's Arnaud Massy, who won the Open Championship in 1907, won the first two editions of this event in 1906 and 1907 and the Open de France is the oldest national open in Continental Europe.

The tournament wasn't played during the war years, and we lost two editions because of the pandemic so this is the 107^th edition.

The Open de France has been a mainstay on the DP World Tour since its inception but we're moving venues this year for the first time since 2001.

The Open de France's usual venue, Le Golf National, which also hosted the Ryder Cup in 2018 and the Olympics last year, is unavailable this time around due to work taking place so we're off to Golf de Saint-Nom-La-Bretèche, a venue last used for the tournament in 1982, when Seve Ballesteros won the second of his four titles with a 10-under-par total.

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Venue

Golf de Saint-Nom-La-Bretèche, Paris.

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Course Details

Par 71, 6,977 yards

In addition to hosting this event way back in 1982, Saint-Nom-la-Bretèche was also the host course for the now defunct Trophée Lancôme, an event that ran between 1970 and 2003 on the DP World Tour.

It's a tree-lined parkland track, designed by Fred Hawtree in 1959, with fairly wide fairways situated just west of Paris, near the Château de Versailles.

The course is undulating with numerous tricky, deep bunkers and a couple of severely sloping greens.

When the course was last used, in 2003, the greens were set to 11 on the Stimpmeter, apart from holes eight and 15, which were left slightly slower due to their severe slopes.

The rolling bentgrass greens are largely well guarded by bunkers.

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Weather Forecast

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TV Coverage

Live on Sky Sports all four days, starting at 12:30 on Thursday.

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Last Eight Winners with Pre-event Exchange Prices

2024 - Dan Bradbury -16 150.0149/1
2023 - Ryo Hisatsune -14 110.0109/1
2022 - Guido Migliozzi -16 130.0129/1
2020 & '21 - Event cancelled
2019 - Nicolas Colsaerts -12 160.0159/1
2018 - Alex Noren -7 19.537/2
2017 - Tommy Fleetwood -12 25.024/1
2016 - Thongchai Jaidee -11 75.074/1
2015 - Bernd Wiesberger -13 38.037/1

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What Will it Take to Win the Open de France?

It's always tough when we go to a different venue and it's especially difficult when we don't have any course form to assess over the last 20 years but the stats at the 2003 edition of the Trophée Lancôme, suggest Greens In Regulation is the metric to concentrate on.

I can't find any stats for the earlier editions so it's very limited evidence but for what it's worth, the 2003 winner, Retief Goosen, ranked 22^nd for GIR and Paul McGinley, who finished second, topped the GIR rankings for the week, with Ian Poulter and Raphael Jacquelin, who finished tied for third, ranking tied for ninth for GIR.

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Recent form at tree-lined tracks could be key

Over the last month the DP World Tour has visited the Belfry for the British Masters, the K Club for the Irish Open, and Wentworth for last week's BMW PGA Championship and all three are tree-lined tracks.

Anyone in the line-up that has performed nicely in any of those events has shown an aptitude for the sort of test ahead of them this week and they should enjoy it here.

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Cream rises to the top at Nom-la-Bretèche

With the Ryder Cup just a week away, none of Luke Donald's team are in the line-up and there are only 10 players in the field that are inside the world's top-100, with Canada's Corey Connors the highest ranked, but if history is anything to go by, one of the top ranked players may well take the title.

Seve won here five times in total and a myriad of major champions claimed the Trophée Lancôme title.

It was a limited field event in the early days so it's hardly surprising to see a list of winners that looks like a who's who of world golf but after it became a full field event in 1982, major winners, Seve (three times) Sandy Lyle, Nick Price, Bernhard Langer, Ian Woosnam (twice), Jose Maria Olazabal, Vijay Singh, Mark O'Meara, Retief Goosen (twice) and Sergio Garcia all won here, as did class acts Colin Montgomerie and Miguel Angel Jimenez, so the cream really has risen to the top here over the years.

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Eisenhower Trophy experience a plus

There isn't any recent DP World Tour form to peruse but the 2022 edition of the Eisenhower Trophy was staged here and at le Golf National and a number of players in the field featured in the amateur team event three years ago, won by Italy.

Only two of the four rounds were played at Nom-La-Bretèche and it's three-year-old form but it's course experience that many in the field don't have so an appearance in the event should be a plus.

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Is There an Identikit Winner?

Between 2006 and 2013, six of the eight Open de France winners were matched at a triple-figure price before the off, so it was a reasonable event for long-shots.

Things changed after that though and the next five winners were all plausible candidates, but it's swung the other way again now and following Dan Bradbury's victory last year, the last four winners have all going off at more than 100.099/1.

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In-Play Tactics

Having looked back at the last 10 events staged here, it looks like we can concentrate on the leaders from fairly early on.

The 1994 winner, Vijay Singh, won wire-to wire, as did Goosen in 2003 and six of the 10 winners sat first or second after the opening round.

Goosen trailed by six after round one and by seven at halfway in 2000 before a 64 on Moving Day saw him climb to second place with 18 to play but most winners here have been in the van throughout.

Mark O'Meara sat third with a round to go in 1997, just one stroke behind the joint leaders, Greg Norman and Peter O'Malley, and he's the odd man out as nine of the last 10 course winners were sitting first or second with 18 to play.

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Tree-lined track specialist can take to the venue

The three-time DP World Tour winner, Ewen Ferguson, would have finished closer than tied fifth at Wentworth last week had he not bogeyed the last after a poor drive, and he looks well worth chancing at a venue that should suit him nicely.

In addition to winning his last two DP World Tour titles at tree-lined tracks, he traded odds-on in Kenya back in 2022, at Muhthaiga Country Club, three weeks before he got off the mark in Qatar. He was matched at just 1.041/25 back in May to win the Soudal Open in Belgium at another tree-lined track, Rinkven.

As he showed in Belgium, and again last week, he's capable of producing a strong performance out of the blue but he's also shown on multiple occasions, that when he does find form, he tends to back it up the following week.

Ferguson was tied for the lead with 18 to play in this event two years ago before a torrid start to round four saw him find water at holes one and two.

He went on to finish only 10^th two years ago but he's demonstrated that this is an event in which he can contend and the change in venue should prove to be a plus for the tree-lined track specialist.

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