European Tour - Avantha Masters

Useless stat of the week:
Total owgr pts to PGATour winners this year = 462
Total owgr pts to EuroTour winners this year = 258 (and none of them in Europe, by the way... )
(incl. this week and excl. WGCs)

Moving on... Delighted, like everyone else, to follow the Avantha Masters this week!
This is only its 5th edition, with the local boy SSP Chowrasia grabing half of the past 4.
Hard to predict an event like this anyway, and that's made worse by the fact that they are changing the course this year (to Jaypee Greens, designed by Greg Norman), so we'll just have to wait and see how it all plays out... I wouldn't be surprised to see again a local guy doing the business, someone like A. Lahiri who's obviously in good form after he won last week the SAIL Open on the Asian Tour. Weather is expected to be hot&humid, in other words not too much fun for the players, I would guess...

The highest ranked golfer in the field is Thongchai Jaidee, with Wiesberger, Broberg, Dyson and Jeev Milkha Singh the only other top 100s. Good to see Wiesberger finally returning to action first time since the Desert swing, and after a wasted trip to Tucson a few weeks ago, when he turned up at the WGC Match Play as the first alternate, just in case... But talking of a return from a long hibernation (or whatever that was), really happy to see Alvaro Quiros back in action, and many will be very keen to see in what shape&form he is after such a long break...

We shall keep an eye also on the Thailand Open, this year for the first time co-sanctioned by OneAsia Tour with the Japanese Tour. Interesting move by the Japanese, and they will also co-sanction the Indonesian PGA Champ in a couple of weeks time...

Main interest there will be Paddy Harri, no doubt, looking for a nice appearence fee... Ooops! I meant a nice win, of course... But Chris Wood will have something to say about that, as he will undoubtedly try and defend his (first) title. KT-Kim is also back in action this week. He looked such a promissing prospect a year or so ago, but then somehow disappeared from the radar screen without a very clear reason...

pd,
Thanks

Great that you pointed out the discrepancy in owgr points, and if the migration continues it's only going to get worse, together with a knock-on effect for the remaining players in Europe. Not helped of course by the abject performance of Europe-based ET Members in the two WGC's:
9th place finishes in the MatchPlay from Gonzo and Lowry;
Nothing better than Noren's 20th place last week.

Molinari, Olesen, Gonzo and Wittenberg (and Coetzee and Grace) in the provisional Bay Hill field (and Fish, must be a precious invite) but our "boys" just aren't taking their opportunities, and that's to the detriment of their fellow ET members.

Wittenberg?

The European Tour up until May, except the Gulf swing isn't a tour any aspiring major winner or Ryder cup player wants to be playing....the fields just get weaker and weaker until after the Masters.

Sorry pd, Ned, must've had Casey on my mind!
Wittenberg is in the provisional field, but not Wiesberger. I thought it was a strange pair of back-to-back events!

Being in India at least Bernd wont have his cheeseburger burnt.

Jaidee looks like a good bet, otherwise I cant get too excited about The Avantha. Agree with sirbenson, ET looking really weak.

A stupid double at the 17th hole denied Harri a share of the lead in Thailand. Finished at 5-under along with Chris Wood. And the young Chinese heavyweight (105kg) Dong Su achieved a pretty rare feat by shooting 3 eagles in one round in Thailand...

Remarkable round by Phadungsil of Thailand in India, 10-under after 17, incl. 7 consecutive birdies! And a decent start for Quiros, finishing 2-under for the day...

EDIT: ..and another birdie at the 18th for a 61!! 5 ahead of the pack so far...

Good start from Harrington....all about getting in contention over the three weeks he has before the Masters...hopefully picking up a win...preferably on the European/PGA Tour.

What the hell...?

Someone's shot 61 in India, and is 5 strokes clear!

I was having breakfast this morning when the Avantha coverage started. When they were doing the montage of the 'big names' and Wiesberger is in there of one of about five players shown you know that its not a big one!

Shame really as I have always imagined that India would be a great place to visit but then I guess your average pro golfer sees very little of where they are apart from the hotel, car and airport so I guess it doesn't matter. I wonder if there are players who think more along the lines of that's somewhere I'd like to go rather than the tournament? Doubt it.

Paddy and Wood moving side by side in Thailand. 67s followed by 66s today, and nicely tied for 3rd at the moment.
A win for Harri on Paddy's day would be nice...

A bit of a disaster for my fantasy team in India, just when I decided to drop Aiken and Kieffer...

Slowly but surely, Asian golfers are begining to take control of many of these co-sanctioned events with the ET, just as the Saffers have been doing for a while now. Not the best future prospect for European golfers. Apart from money, the share of OWGR points that the Europeans are going to earn will start to dilute even further if something doesn't change soon enough...

Missed cuts for many Europeans who could least afford it (money-list and ranking-wise, presumably they've all got plenty in the bank), guys like Maybin, Molinari, Hansen, Chopra, Dyson, Luiten etc.

But at least two Kumars survive!

Glad to see Alvaro make the cut, sorry he couldn't finish his round off properly.

Prince you have a great knowledge of the rankings....Would Harrington with a top 3 or better at least move up in the rankings a small bit?

sirb, not too many points available there, obviously, but a win could lift him as high as #47, and a 2nd place could just about get him inside top 50 if no one from behind gets ahead of him...

On the other hand, Chris Wood can't get inside the top 50 even if he wins...

Oh dear! Paddy must've lost his glasses out there...
Playing together with Chris Wood today, they started level and after only 9 holes Harri's trailing by 8 (eight) shots ?!!

Not much fun looking at the Avantha leaderboard either and seeing Aiken in the lead as I just dropped him this week from my FT, after backing him all the way through the South African swing... They're shooting the lights out today on that course...

Wood is trying to defend his title so not all about world ranking points. If he wins it will set him up for a push to get into the top 50 in Malyasia. Makes more sense travel wise was well as he did not arrive in Thailand until Wednesday morning after flight problems from Miami.

I've seen a couple of posts suggesting Wood is defending here. Jbe Kruger won this last year, Wood's first and only win came in Qatar earlier this year.

SJ,
I think you'll be taken to task for that . . . . . his first European Tour title, but Thailand was his first win.

The slightly confusing thing about this event in Thailand is that the previous edition, which Wood won last year, was held in August not in March, which means he'll have 3 wins in 7 months if he wins it again tomorrow...

Yes.Wood is definitely defending champion in Thailand.

Pretty amazing that Chris Wood is playing so well considering what he went through before getting there late on Wednesday...

http://www.thisisbristol.co.uk/Chris-Wood-m-determined-Thailand-Open/story-18399230-detail/story.html#axzz2Nij0zC2Q

Surprised he wouldn't have done better to get his kip on a flight to LA or SFO - making things tough on himself going via LHR after experiencing a problem. Hope he knew where his clubs were but many guys now seem to ship them separately.
Good luck to him though, be close to the gates to Magnolia Lane with a win.

...very close indeed, he could even sneak in if that event gets to 18 points (looked close to that when I checked first time, but will have to check again properly). But then you have guys like KJ, Chalmers, etc, who could move ahead of him with a good finish in Tampa...

kwinigolfer wrote:SJ,
I think you'll be taken to task for that . . . . . his first European Tour title, but Thailand was his first win.

Apologies, I was just looking at the title thread and missed the whole Thailand thing.

Great win for Aiken in the end in India, well overdue... A bit of an underachiever in his career so far. Will move back inside the top 100...

I know it's not entirely unexpected at this time of the year, but it's getting a bit ridiculous nevertheless: nine out of the top 25 in the R2D are now Saffers!

Chris Wood settled for a T4 in the end in Thailand...