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The European Tour moves onto Australia, in name at least. There is a field of 144 for this event, but the European Tour has filled only 31 of the places in this field via Eligibility Category 6 for co-sanctioned events. And the top-ranked player in this field is Australian (Lucas Herbert). At least last year, there was the World Super 6 Perth to be held in Australia the following week to encourage players to travel here, but that event has been cancelled and there is now a rest week on the European Tour schedule next week.

The cancellation of the World Super 6 Perth in September was widely anticipated. As Geoff Ogilvy said last year, “We’re never going to have the budget to pay the appearance fees that these kids want, it’s too much. The Middle East and China and Asia pay so much money in appearance fees that an extra six or seven hours on the plane for less money, they’re just not going to come.”

It's a shame for such an innovative event. Since 2012, it has been a combined men’s and women’s event with the near-300 players competing across two courses for two days with alternative groups of men and women. The two fields are then cut to 60 and ties after round 2 and then 35 and ties after round 3. Other than the men’s tees being further back, the two sets of players compete on the same course(s) at the same time.

This will be the second year that the European Tour has co-sanctioned this year, so even though the event has been held at 13^th Beach since 2013, there is only one year of full stats available. Given that the winner, David Law, was 300/1 and had never previously recorded a top-25 finish on the European Tour, it would appear that looking at this one year may not be particularly illuminating.

That said, the courses are standard links in format with undulating fairways, pot bunkers and fescue-lined fairways. The Beach course is as it sounds, while the Creek course is a little more inland, with wider fairways and more forgiving rough. Three of the four rounds will be played at the Beach course. As with most links courses, it is not the length of the course that is its main defence, it is the coastal wind. There was only one windy day last year (round three), while the forecast is for stronger winds at the weekend.

With the obvious caveat about the lack of stats from previous events here, here are a number of angles to identify players who should contend.

Angles to consider:

1. Course Form

Between 2014 and 2017, each winner had achieved at least one top-15 finish in this event (two of the three eligible ones had two top-15 finishes). This did not hold in 2018, but two of the top-5 had previously secured top-15 finishes here, and while last year’s winner was making his course debut, runner-up Brad Kennedy had finished 19^th the year before and 5^th-placed David Bransdon had finished 6^th two years before. There was always going to be a disruption to any trends in the first year of co-sanction, but the links feel to the course and the nature of the mixed event should reward familiarity with the course and event itself.

2. Strong wind and links play

Given the course location, this is fairly obvious. But given that the top-8 on the leaderboard consisted of five home players, one South African and two Scots, there is a clear argument for familiarity with the course and links-type golf. It is notable that Law is from Aberdeen and won the Scottish Hydro Challenge on the Challenge Tour the previous year. That is an inland course (Aviemore), but familiarity with links courses and playing in coastal breezes should be a benefit again this year.

3. Lack of depth in the field

Last year’s field was better than this year’s for reasons mentioned above, but only two of the top-9 players on the leaderboard hadn’t competed in at least one of the big money events in the Middle East beforehand. Six of the top-9 had competed in the Saudi International the week before. Given that only 28 in the entire field had done so, this shows the lack of depth in last year’s field: home players did not contend last year unless they were already at the level to be playing in some of the European Tour’s biggest events. The European Tour contingent is much smaller/weaker this year, but it highlights the gulf in class between those playing in Tours around the world and those competing only on the Australasian Tour.

Selections

The above angles have been used to create a shortlist from which the following players have been selected.

Ryan Fox

The Australian has finished in the top-30 in each of the last two weeks on the European Tour and is attempting to win a co-sanctioned event in Australia for the second year in a row – he won the World Super 6 Perth last year. He has strong links credentials having two top-10 finishes in the Scottish Open in the last three years and finished inside the top-20 in the Open Championship at Royal Portrush last summer. He was also inside the top-10 after two rounds last year before missing the 3^rd round cut by a shot, so he meets the profile of a strong challenger this week.

Wade Ormsby

Ormsby held a two-shot lead heading into the final round last year, but lost out by a shot to Law. In last year’s other co-sanctioned event in Australia, he finished 3^rd in the Australian PGA Championship so that shows that he can compete at this level. He showed that when winning the 2017 Hong Kong Open and he showed it again when winning that event as a wire-to-wire winner last month. That is very strong form and while he did not play well in the Middle East, he looks far more likely to be a serious contender on this course again this week.

Min-Woo Lee

Lee finished 3^rd alongside Ormsby in the Australian PGA Championship and was 15^th in the South African Open last month so he has decent form even though he missed the cut in Saudi Arabia last week. He finished 6^th in this event in 2017 as an 18-year-old and while he has yet to win a Tour event, it will only be a matter of time.

Tips  2-1; +22.60pts

1pt e.w. Ryan Fox 20/1 (Boyle Sports 1/5 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8)  2nd

1pt e.w. Wade Ormsby 18/1 (Boyle Sports 1/5 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8)  mc

1pt e.w. Min-Woo Lee 18/1 (Boyle Sports 1/5 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8)  1st