Turkish Airlines Open: In-form South African a great bet at 74/1

• Course form counts at Regnum Carya

• Read my Truist Championship preview here

• Read my Myrtle Beach Classic preview here

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Tournament History

The Turkish Airlines Open was first played in 2013 and it was an ever present on the DP World Tour for seven years.

The first three editions, and the final edition in 2019, were all staged at the Montgomerie Maxx but the three editions between 2016 and 2018 were all staged at the Regnum Carya Golf & Spa Resort and that's were the tournament returns this week.

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Venue

Regnum Carya Golf & Spa Resort, Antalya, Turkey.

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Course Details

Par 71, 7,220 yards
Stroke index in 2018 when a played to 7,159 yards - 69.73

Designed by Thomson, Perret & Lobb (the design practice founded by the Australian multiple Open Champion, Peter Thomson) Regnum Carya Golf & Spa Resort is described as Turkey's first heathland inspired golf course. Surrey's Walton Heath and Sunningdale are said to be the inspiration behind the venue.

Set on slightly undulating sand hills, the course runs through a pine forest and more than one million heather plants were added to the existing areas of indigenous heather to create the course's distinctive look.

The Bermuda fairways are tree-lined and narrower than average and water is in-play on eight holes - the fifth, sixth, 10th, 11th, 13th, 15th, 17th and 18th.

The greens are very large, easy to hit, undulating and fairly fast (set at 12 on the stimpmeter in previous years), featuring multiple plateaus, creating 'greens within greens'.

The 10th is a par five for members, but it plays as a par four here and it's consistently the hardest hole on the course, averaging around 4.4, but other than that, it's a really easy course, although the finish isn't straightforward. 

The 16th is a quirky hole, with the back tee positioned on the top of a villa, and the last three holes, all par fours, were the sixth, third and second toughest on the course back in 2018. 

The course has been lengthened fractionally since last used with the par five 15^th and the 18^th hole both playing longer this time around. 

In addition to the three editions of this event, Carya was also used for the Turkish Airlines Challenge on the Challenge Tour way back in 2010.

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Weather Forecast

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TV Coverage

Live on Sky Sports all four days, starting at 11:00 on Thursday.

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First Seven Tournament Winners

2013 - Victor Dubuisson -24
2014 - Brooks Koepka -17
2015 - Victor Dubuisson -22
2016 - Thorbjørn Olesen -20
2017 - Justin Rose -18
2018 - Justin Rose -17 (playoff)
2019 - Tyrrell Hatton -20 (playoff)

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What Will it Take to Win the Turkish Airlines Open?

Thorbjorn Olesen, who ranked 17^th for Driving Distance, won the first renewal here ranking only 63^rd for Driving Accuracy, but Justin Rose, who won the next two editions here, ranked better for accuracy than he did for length off the tee.

The Englishman ranked 24^th for DD and second for DA in 2017 and 35^th and 14^th 12 months later. I'd slightly favour Driving Accuracy over Driving Distance but neither metric is especially important.

Olesen ranked eighth for Greens In Regulation in 2016, Rose hit more greens in regulation than anyone else in 2017, and he ranked as high as sixth a year later so that's been a key stat.

Rose only ranked 24^th for Putting Average back in 2017 but the two players that ranked first and second for PA, the defending champ, Olesen, and Nicolas Colsaerts, finished fifth and tied second and in 2016, the first five home had a PA ranking of seventh, second, ninth, 15^th and fifth.

On the last occasion that the event was staged here, the first three - Rose, Haotong Li and Thomas Detry - ranked seventh, second and first for PA so you clearly need to putt well on the larger than average dancefloors.

Derry also topped the Scrambling stats in 2018 but the front two only ranked 68^th and 18^th and that was a bit of a surprise after the first two results here.

Rose ranked third for Scrambling and six of the top ten finishers ranked inside the top seven in 2017 and looking back to the 2016 edition, five of the top ten scramblers finished inside the top-nine places.

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Course Form Counts at Regnum Carya

Justin Rose has a 100% record at Regnum Carya but he's not the only player to play well here on more than one occasion.

Nicolas Colsaerts has course form figures reading 43-2-14 and Kiradech Aphibarnrat's numbers here read 25-6-23. Julien Suri and David Lipsky have finished eighth and 23^rd and sixth and 27^th on their only two visits, Thomas Pieters finished 11^th and 18^th on his only two visits here, and on the two occasions that Shane Lowry has played Carya, he's finished 14^th and eighth. Tyrrell Hatton has played here twice and he finished 10^th and 16^th but other than Rose, Haotong Li and Thorbjorn Olesen have the best records.

Li finished 66^th in 2017 but he's twice finished runner-up here, and having finished 43^rd at the track on the HotelPlanner Tour back in 2010, Olesen has finished first, fifth and seventh.

It's six years since the course was last used but the stats suggest that respect should be given to anyone that's play well here previously.

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Is There an Identikit Winner?

This tournament was part of the now defunct but prestigious Fall Series, before graduating to become a Rolex Series event, so it's not as significant a tournament as it once was but for the record, the cream has risen to the top previously.

We've had seven renewals so far and only five different winners but all five have been straight out of the top drawer. And when Rose won here for the second time in 2018, the victory took him to the top of the world rankings.

All five have played Ryder Cups and two of them are major champions. Both Victor Dubuisson, who won the event twice, and Brooks Koepka, who won in-between Victor's two victories, won their first DP World Tour events in this tournament and it's interesting to reflect on how their journeys have varied since. Dubuisson finally called it a day after he was sick of golf getting in the way of his fishing, whereas Koepka went on to win five majors!

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In-Play Drama Could be on the Cards

Olesen sat second after the opening round in 2016, before he kicked clear in round two with a sensational 62 to lead by six and unsurprisingly, he was never headed after that.

As many as seven of the top-nine on the final leaderboard that year had been inside the top ten after round one - suggesting being up with the pace might be key - and the two playoff protagonists in 2018, Rose and Li, had been in the top-five places all week long, but there is evidence to suggest you can come form off the pace here.

The two playoff protagonists on the HotelPlanner Tour 15 years ago had trailed by five and seven strokes at halfway and both defied the odds.

The winner, Charlie Ford, had sat tied for 81^st after round one but he was tied for the lead with 18 to play whereas the runner-up, Oscar Floren, had trailed by seven after 54 holes.

Rose started quite slowly when he won here for the first time too. He sat tied for 19^th and five off the lead after round one and positioned in a tie for 13^th, he trailed the clear halfway leader, Colsaerts, by nine strokes at halfway. A third round 73 by Colsaerts meant it was all change at the top and Rose sat alongside the Belgian with a round to go in a three-way tie for third, two shots behind the joint leaders Lowry and Aphibarnrat, before going on to win by one. 

In the four tournaments held here, Ford, who was tied for the lead, and Olesen, who was six in front, are the only two leaders or co-leaders to convert and we witnessed all sorts of drama on the last occasion the track was used.

Having led by three through 54 holes, Li didn't get off to the best of starts and Rose appeared to have assumed command when he led by two with just four holes to play. Rose hit a low of 1.11/10 and it was starting to look like a done deal until Li did this at the par five 15^th with his second shot.

What. A. Shot. @haotong_li #TAOpen2018 pic.twitter.com/KHmOnBHcYt

-- Turkish Airlines Golf (@T_A_Golf) November 4, 2018

Rose three-putted for par after also finding the green in two before Li popped in the eagle putt and in a flash, they were level. Rose responded immediately with a birdie at 16 but they were tied again after he bogeyed 17 and both men had a great chance to take the title in regulation play, but both missed their par saves below.

Li was then matched at a low of 1.42/5 when he had around five feet for a birdie three and the title at the first extra hole, but his bold attempt slipped by the hole and he missed the return. It was a sad way for a titanic battle to end but long odds-on Rose backers were relieved.

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In-form South African a great bet

Haotong Li has been weak in the market but he's still the only player in the field trading at less than 20/121.00 and I was happy enough to take 18.017/1.

He endured a rocky couple of weeks in his homeland, finishing fourth in the China Open, having been tied for the lead through 54 holes, and tied for 51^st in the Hainan Classic, having been tied for the lead after round one.

A week off will have done him the world of good and he should relish returning to a course that clearly suits him.

He was an impressive winner of the Qatar Masters as recently as February and he's clearly the man to beat in what is a fairly weak renewal.

Matt Cooper, who will be stepping in for me with the In-Play Blog this week, makes a great case for Adrian Otaegui in his each-way column but the one I like at a midrange price is the in-form South African, Jacques Kruyswijk, who could very easily be lining up here in search of his third victory in five starts.

The 32-year-old Pretorian was an impressive winner of the Kenya Open at the end of February, winning by a couple of strokes having led by one through 54 holes.

He was never in-contention in the South Africa Open the following week but that's understandable given he'd just bagged his first DP World Tour title, and he very nearly won his second next time out at the Joburg Open.

Kruyswijk was matched at a low of 1.748/11 in regulation play before he caught an unlucky break at the second extra hole in the playoff won by Calum Hill.

It looked like he'd hit a perfect approach into the 18^th hole, but it just caught the slope left of the hole and ran away from the target. He was a little bit too aggressive with his birdie putt and missed the return.

In his only start following the playoff defeat in Joburg, Kruyswijk finished tied for second at the Southern Africa Tour Championship on the Sunshine Tour.

That was at the end of March so there is a chance he's cooled off having not played in more than a month but given he has current form figures reading 1-37-2-2, and that he was an 85.084/1 shot in Kenya and a 44.043/1 chance at the Joburg, it's a little odd that he's as big as 75.074/1 here.

This is his first visit to Regnum Carya but in his last four starts he's ranked 15^th, ninth, 40^th and fourth for Scrambling and second, 23^rd, third and 14^th for Putting Average, so he ticks the right boxes statistically and he looks a great bet at 75.074/1.

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*You can follow me on Twitter @SteveThePunter

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