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Not quite the party after the last Major, but it should be a bumper week at the LIV Golf UK event where general admission tickets have sold out and some hospitality tickets remain for the three days. And there will be some decent summer weather, albeit with the threat of some showers on Saturday. Quote a contrast from Royal Troon last week. This is event #11 on the 14-event schedule and follows on from the dramatic LIV Golf Andalucia event where Sergio Garcia had the lead with two holes to play and lost it, Anirban Lahiri had a putt from inside two-feet on the last hole to win both the individual and team title, but missed it. His miss meant that there was a double playoff for the individual and team title for the first time in LIV Golf history. Lahiri’s misery and discomfort amongst his teammates was compounded when he lost the individual playoff and his team lost the team playoff. And now the three-week leg concludes with the LIV Golf London rebranded as LIV Golf UK and the event moving to JCB Golf and Country Club in the Midlands. Sam Horsfield lives five minutes from the course and this is his practice course when not on tour. Given that this course has hosted only two European Legends Tour events until now, no-one in this field bar Horsfield will have played this course previously. The course was opened in 2018 and is a parkland course in format with lakes being a factor on four holes. It measures 7,255 yards and will play as a par-71 with the 506-yard 6th hole converted from a par-5 to a par-4 this week. With the 470-yard hole straight afterward, it will be a challenging section of the course and not the ideal starting point for any group. The length doesn’t just apply to these two holes: the 17th is a 244-yard par-3 to an island green to mirror a famous hole, albeit over 100 yards longer, and all three par-5s are over 600 yards in length. By contrast, the 337-yard 2nd and 303-yard 12th hole provide driveable holes and the possibilities of eagles, or double-bogeys if errant off the tee. Given the lack of any Tour events held at this six-year-old course that record more than just scorecard data, we are left with course descriptions, images and reports from the player interviews to predict the features that will be important this week. Here are some quotes from this morning’s interview with the Cleeks team: Lee Westwood: “It looks pretty tricky to me. There's a lot of undulations out there. The fairways feel quite tight. The rough is certainly penal if you stray off the fairways. Greens have a lot of undulations in them. Unless you've got control of your ball, it's going to be difficult to get close to the flags, I think.” Ian Poulter: “Pin locations is key. We've got massive putting surfaces, so depending on where they want to tuck some of these pins, that would be a factor, and then they've got the option to move some of these tees forward. We've got some long par-3s, we've got some long par-5s, do they move some of them forward and give us an opportunity. I think there could be a wide range whatever they want the score to be. It's entirely up to the whole setup.” Sam Horsfield: “There's a good handful [of blind shots]. Probably six or so. More so tee shots. It'll be a good challenge for the guys. You're probably going to see some interesting shots being played. The greens are ridiculously undulating. They want to put some pins in some spots, they can put some pins in some spots for us.” Lee Westwood: “I just feel like when you've had a few practice rounds, blind shots are sometimes an advantage because you kind of pick a spot out and focus on that one spot rather than hitting down a 30-yard-wide fairway. It tends to focus your attention. Once you've learnt the golf course, it's not too much of a problem. Probably the greens are a little bit different because they are so undulating. There's runoffs. So you've really got to know where to land it. I'm thinking of like the 8th where you're only hitting a wedge or 9-iron in but it's blind, landing on a green with a lots of undulations. So accuracy is important, not only line-wise but distance-wise, as well.” Ian Poulter: “You're going to have a number of tricky shots this week. No fairway is really perfectly flat. Those blind tee shots, as Lee said, you really have to do your homework. The challenge is going to be putting the ball where you need to put it for your second shot to give yourself a decent opportunity to make birdie. The green surfaces are very large. Pin locations, you're going to have to use some of these ridges in the green to feed it into certain pin locations. If you miss those ridges and you're the wrong side, you're going to be left with a very difficult two-putt. I think for me, it will be distance control, second-shot iron play, not being too overaggressive. There is no meaningful course form to draw upon, but the above is sufficient for propose some angles for this event. Angles to consider: 1. Ball-striking and the short game will be all-important this week The interview quotes paint a very clear and consistent picture of this course. The course is long and there are driveable par-4s, but this is a not a bomber’s paradise. The fairways are too tight for this and the key to good scoring lies in ball control – being able to find the correct part of the green with approach shots. This is all the most important given that the greens are “massive” (Poulter) and are “ridiculously undulating” (Horsfield). With run-off areas as well, scrambling as well as approach play and putting skill appear to the key skills required to score well this week. 2. Avoid players who played at the weekend While the cold, windy weather finally relented on Sunday afternoon and provided the best scoring opportunities for the final groups, it can’t be under-stated how much of a grind last week’s event will have been those playing at the weekend. Scottie Scheffler called it “probably the hardest nine holes that I’ll ever play” on Saturday. It was reminiscent of the Saturday at the 2002 Open Championship at Muirfield. Tiger Woods had won the first two Majors of the year and was inside the top-10 at the start the day, but shot 81. The hangover from last weekend, as well as the impact on the swing, should be discernible this week. Selections The above angles have been used to create a shortlist from which the following players has been selected. Louis Oosthuizen
The South African remains a selection and is tipped to win his first LIV Golf event after twice being a runner-up this year. In terms of fitting the above course profile, he leads the Tour rankings this year in terms of putts per GIR and is ranked 3rd in scrambling. His form is good – he finished 4th in Valderrama two weeks ago – and won back-to-back events on the DP World Tour in December. He also missed the cut last week so was spared the brutal conditions on Saturday. Tyrrell Hatton
All of the 2024 signings, Hatton has been the standout player this year. He is the only player on the LIV Golf roster to finish with points (top-24 finish) in every LIV Golf event this year and that includes a win (Nashville) and a 3rd-place finish in his last two LIV Golf events. As with Oosthuizen, he missed the cut last week to meet that angle and he has the game to meet the course-specific angle as well: he ranks 5th in scrambling and 2nd in putts per GIR this year. Sam Horsfield
In terms of the angles above, Cameron Smith would have been next on the list, but it is difficult to ignore Horsfield given that this event is played on his home course. The amount of blind shots off the tee, plus the 8th hole where the shot to the green is blind, creates a very large edge for those who know the course. Both Poulter and Westwood confirmed this in their quotes above. While a hip injury has disrupted his time with LIV Golf prior to this year, he has fared much better this year, particularly with a runners-up finish in Nashville last month. He won three times on the DP World Tour between 2020 and 2022, including the 2020 Hero Open played less than 60 miles from this week’s venue, so he should be competitive regardless of his local knowledge. Given that his top win odds are the same as they were for him to win at Valderrama, which he had never played prior to that event, this week’s odds are clearly too high given the local player advantage this week. Tips 2-1; -2.48pts 1pt e.w. Louis Oosthuizen 18/1 (Boyle Sports 1/5 1-2-3-4-5-6) 6th 1pt e.w Tyrrell Hatton 8/1 (Boyle Sports 1/5 1-2-3-4-5-6) 2nd 1pt e.w. Sam Horsfield 75/1 (Bet365 1/4 1-2-3-4-5) 34th
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