
Open de Espana Tips: Four each way-picks in Madrid

The Open de Espana takes place on the DP World Tour this week and our man Jamie Broadhurst previews the event and provides his best bets.
Open de Espana
The DP World Tour moves onto its first of three legs in Spain for the national Open, hosted at the Club de Campo Villa de Madrid, located in Spain’s capital. Local favourite and World Number 3 Jon Rahm makes the trip back to his home country and is quite rightly the market leader at a rather short looking 11/5. Rahm is also the defending Champion heading into this week’s event.
Club de Campo Villa de Madrid – The Club de Campo course
- Par 71, 7110 yards approx.
- Course designer – Javier Arana in 1956, latest renovations by Manuel Pinero
- Tree lined fairways, plenty of dog legs and is undulating – Resort style course
- Fairways/Rough – primarily Bermuda/Rye grass
- Greens – Bentgrass/Poa Annua
- 4 x Par 3s – ranging from 177-210 yards
- 11 x Par 4s – ranging from 362-505 yards
- 3 x Par 5s – 526, 536 and 564 yards
Early Weather forecast this week
Back to normality this week for the players after the antics of the Scottish coastline last week. Four days of low 20 degrees Celsius, with hardly any wind - gusts are set to reach a massive maximum of 12mph across the week. No draw bias it seems, the best golfers will be sure to have a great week with eagle/birdie opportunities aplenty!
Last three winners and their stats
2022 winner – Jon Rahm -25
2021 winner – Rafa Cabrera-Bello -19
2019 winner – Jon Rahm -22
Average stats for the past three winners – Score -23
- 9th Strokes Gained: Off the Tee
- 12th Driving Accuracy
- 2nd Strokes Gained: Tee2Green
- 24th Greens in Regulation
- 5th Strokes Gained: Approach
- 3rd Scrambling
- 10th Putting
The Madrid Masters and the Open de Madrid were held here in 2004, 2005 and 2008 which were won by Rich Sterne, Raphael Jaquelin and Charl Schwartzel so there are further stats for these events if you fancy a dig.
Stats to consider this week
Strokes Gained: Off the Tee – hint of Driving Accuracy/Strokes Gained: Tee2Green
Fairways here are generous but they are tree lined and they do need finding in regulation in order to score low. With eight out of the eleven Par 4s being under 450 yards an emphasis will always be on the tee shot to get as close to the green as possible. Lots of dog legs and water in play on occasions, players will be in 2 minds on occasions as to what club to take off the tee.
Scrambling
An average of 3rd from the winners of the three previous Open de Espanas, undulating fairways/greens with severe runoffs in places will cause a headache when trying to get up and down, so a player who does this well won’t go amiss.
Stroke Average/Birdies made
Short Par 4s, short Par 5s, a winning average of -23 for the last three events means there are eagle/birdie opportunities, so a guy who consistently shoots low scores will be on the cards this week.
Par 4 performance
As mentioned above, 72% of the Par 4s are under the 450 yards mark. Meaning that the majority of them can be deemed as easy/scorable holes. Players that conquer Par 4s week in week out will be a good indicator on who will go well here this week.
The Field/Odds
World Number three and defending champion Jon Rahm opens as favourite quite rightly this week at a measly 11/5. He was pretty much untouchable in Italy for team Europe two weeks ago at the Ryder Cup and looked a force to be reckoned with again after a couple of quiet months. He blew the field away last year here in Madrid, eventually winning by six shots.
Fellow Ryder Cup hero Justin Rose is then second favourite at 14/1. His debut at this Spanish course this week, but a course that requires good accuracy and good proximity, it looks set up for Justin’s eye for sure. I would not be surprised to see him stick it to Rahm and challenge this week.
The field really then spreads out in terms of quality and that really tells when looking at the odds board with just two players in the 20/1-28/1 range which on a usual week is the field packed with talent! These two guys are Yannik Paul at 25/1 and Adrian Otaegui at 28/1. Adrian did not attend last year's event as he was on the LIV golf tours books which did not work out in the end for him, but Paul came here at shot -14 and finished in a tie for 8th place. However, the Spanish plodder gets the nod for me this week out of the two of these. Very accurate off the tee who is not scared to take less than driver in any situation, hits greens for fun and just relies on the putter heating up for a good week, he may well be a selection of mine this week.
From 30/1 then you have floods of players who on their week can play some good golf for sure. Antoine Rozner at 45/1, Alex Fitzpatrick at 45/1 and Pablo Larrazabal at 70/1 intrigue me this week, meaning I will be looking into them further stats wise with them in mind to potentially feature on my betting card.
Open de Espana Tips
Open de Espana Selections
Four selections this week! 1.25pts each way in the eight places market on Bet365. Good luck to all! Let’s get back to winning ways after a blank week last week!
Adrian Otaegui 28/1
Recent Form – 16-36-45-55-68
Course Form – 17
As said above in ‘The Field/Odds’ section I truly believe this is a course for Otaegui, and with a 17th place finish here in 2021 it looks like it may well be! The short but sharp hitter ranks 1st for Driving Accuracy on the DP World Tour for this season and is well inside the top-10 for both Strokes Gained: Approach and Tee2Green categories with a really good scrambling game to go with it. If this putter works for Adrian this week he will contend as recent results show he is trending in the right direction for sure.
Romain Langasque 35/1
Recent Form – WD-14-25-32-81
Course Form – MC
A bit of a flyer here on this one for me as I never seem to catch Romain right as he is a little inconsistent and wayward with some of his shot choices. Before he arrived at a sodden Alfred Dunhill Links last week, I followed him for two days around Wentworth GC which is a really demanding track where he really held his own to finish in 14th place. He does a lot of good and his stats for this DP World Tour season backs that up for sure, I can really see his neat and tidy Scrambling game putting him in good stead this week.
Antoine Rozner 45/1
Recent Form - 10-MC-80-24
Course Form – 56
The second Frenchman on my card for this week, and a bit like the guy above I struggle getting Antoine right. When he is in form he is a pleasure to watch, and a 10th place finish last week on a demanding set up in the conditions that were presented to him was a cracking effort. He finished the week inside the top-20 for three out of the four main Strokes Gained categories, back the Tee2Green machine here this week to go well.
Nacho Elvira 110/1
Recent Form – 22-83-MC-23
Course Form – 3-37-MC-MC
The outsider of the week and picked predominantly based on his performance last week, where he lay in 2nd place after two rounds, but then fell away in the mud! Tee2Green Elvira is a really solid player, ranking in the top-50 on Tour for both Approach and Tee2Green categories, alongside the glimmer of form last week and returning to his home countries Open, I am sure he will be fired up and confident he can make a good showing!

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