Joost Luiten 14/1 © Kevin Murray
Founded in 1910, Kennemer Golf & Country Club is located at Zandvoort, the club moved to its current location in 1927, when Harry Colt was commissioned to lay out the course amongst the towering sand dunes where Colt has produced one of his finest designs.
In 1985, Frank Pennink was asked to design nine new holes, giving Kennemer 27 holes of great golf. The three nines are known by two names!! The A course – Van Hengel (named after the Steven van Hengel who was a member and an eminent figure in Dutch golf), the B course – Pennink and the C nine – Colt.
The course the Dutch KLM Open will be played on this week will be a composite course using the A nine followed by holes 1, 2 and 3 of the B nine, then holes 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 of the C nine.
Simon Dyson 30/1 © TourProGolfClubs.com
If you didn’t know where you were, you would think you were standing on a classic links course in Scotland or England with its undulating ground, dunes, gorse and the odd pine tree. It’s also the course where Seve Ballesteros won his first professional golf tournament in 1976 and fellow Spaniard and great friend, José Maria Olazábal followed suit in 1989 by winning the Dutch Open here.
My tips to win:
Hard to not go for defending champion Joost Luiten 14/ 1 with StanJames and although he won on a different track, the Dutchman had a runner-up finish on this course back in 2007. I am sure Joost has been disappointed with how this season has panned out. I expected him to make the Ryder Cup team and I am sure he did too, but with no wins and only 5 Top 10 places this year this could be the start of a great end of season run.
I am sure Brooks Koepka 22/1 with BetVictor has been on the radar of quite a few pundits and just waiting to see when he will start to challenge and win his first full European Tour event. Koepka cruised to a 3-shot victory at the Scottish Hydro Challenge tour event in 2013 it was his third win on that tour and it gained him automatic promotion to The European Tour. And at 24 he has the talent to become one of America’s top golfers.
Romain Wattel 45/1 © Kevin Murray
It’s been a strange year watching Simon Dyson 30/1 with BetVictor just when you think he is about to get some consistency back in his golf game he seems to take a step backwards again. Simon has won this event 3-times, one of those wins was on this track and he was again in the Top 3 last year. If Dyson is to win an event this year – I think being back here playing in a tournament he obviously enjoys and on a course where he has won before, this will be the week.
My each-way tips:
I am going to stick with two of last week’s tips and in fact I have tipped Romain Wattel 45/1 with Bet365 for the last two weeks, so I obviously feel he is on the verge of winning his first European Tour event. And with making the Top 15 in the weeks we have tipped him, he has made steady progress up the leaderboard and closed last week’s European Masters out with two 65s. The Frenchman is in good form and I think it’s a matter of when, not if he is going to pick up his first winners trophy this year.
Another player who is waiting for his first European Tour win is Eddie Pepperell 60/1 with BetFred who was on a great run of form until we tipped him at the Open D’Italia where he duly missed the cut. But with two Top 5s on the spin the weeks before that, I think the missed cut could be a blessing in disguise and we will see the lad from Oxford knuckle down and come back this week in a more determined mood.
My outside tip:
I’m going with two outside tips this week as one is a sentimental tip as this is going to be Robert-Jan Derksen 100/1 with Bet365 last year as a full time European tour pro and he will no doubt want to go out on a high by trying to win his home Open Championship, and Tyrrell Hatton 80/1 with Bet365 who has had two Top 5 finishes in his last six tournaments and he also had a runners-up finish earlier in the year at the Joburg Open and is someone we have been tracking for the last few months.
For updated betting odds during the tournament go to planetgolfreview.com
