Mavs Euro Tour Weekly - Volvo Champions Event @ Fancourt Links

This past week saw yet another home win in Sout Africa with the spoils going toBrandon Grace in his 50th professional start. It also saw Jamie Elson announce himself to the ET in style with a 2nd place after a blistering final 18holes.

This Week:

See’s the 2nd playing of the Volvo champions event. This year though sees changes to last years innaugrual showing as listed below.

1. Change of Venue from Bahrain to its new home and one that’s in line as long term host, Fancourt Links in South Africa.

2.This year see’s the field reduced with no cut line so everyone’s guaranteed a paycheck

3.Qualification is now stringent and only winners of events in the past 12month calendar year can play or previous ET members that still have full playing rights on tour (hence Monty and Olazabals' inclusion in the field)

4.Grand finalists and winners of the Volvo amateur golf tour event are the only guys to be selected to play in the events pro-am.

Some interesting tit bits for this week:

• There will be 29 winners from The European Tours International Schedule in 2011 and from the first two events of 2012 competing. Between them they compiled 36 victories from a total of 54 events.

• Fancourt first hosted a European Tour competition at the 2006 South African Open Championship, the eventual winner was Retief Goosen.

• The European Senior Tour staged the 2010 Berenberg Bank Masters over the Gary Player-designed course.

• Fancourt was also the scene of the only tie in the history of the Presidents Cup in 2003.

• Goosen is one of nine players who played in the 2006 South African Open Championship over The Links layout and are here again this year. The other eight are: Thomas Aiken, Ernie Els, Michael Hoey, Louis Oosthuizen, Hennie Otto, Robert Rock, Charl Schwartzel and Lee Slattery.

• The Volvo Golf Champions will begin the 26th consecutive year of Volvo sponsorship on The European Tour. This dates back to the Volvo Belgian Open in 1987 at Royal Waterloo and won by Eamonn Darcy

One final point of interest to those of you that like a wager on the golf – not only was Goosen the winner of the 2006 SA Open at this venue, he also happens to be a member of the club and when he’s home in SA can be found on the range and fairways here most days, so he has plenty of local knowledge…..

European Tour News

Despite now being a fully fledged PGA tour member player Lee Westwood has committed to headline the playing list at the Qatar Masters.

JM Singh hopes to return from injury at the Dubai Desert Classic, but more importantly Freddie Couples has agreed to play in the event and we all love Freddie.

An interesting article on the ET this week about former PGA Champion and now full-time ET player, American Rich Beem on why he’s now making the most of his exemption which expires this year and his plans for the future. http://www.europeantour.com/europeantour/season=2012/tournamentid=2012002/news/newsid=152376.html#beem+embraces+start+european+adventure

Challenge Tour News:

Again slow reporting as the first event is not until the 26th January and kicks off in India so if anything pops up I’ll update everyone as and when.

Thanks for reading. Mav

Great article. Lots of interesting points and insight. Thanks for sharing!

Cheers Mav
I was wondering what Monty and Olly were doing there. At least Paul Lawrie qualified 'by form'.

T'is a strange call Doon, the idea is to have all active champions on the tour playing! But my interpretation of it should be Champions from the previous playing season! Thus making it more competitive, current and worthy of the smaller field! Not allowing some to live off past glory and giving them an easy payday.

Makes it more prestigious as well if you know you only qualify by being a Winner, not living of past memory or service to the tour!

Looks tough out there for the early starters. Early leader is Matthew Zions (-2 after 11)

Most around the level par mark at the moment with some big guns (comparatively anyway) due out soon

Seems like the back nine playing easier than the front?

Nicolas Colsaerts stretching it out to -8 with one hole to play (and a par 5 at that) then a gap to the -4s and -3s with a large chasing pack

Special mention for Tom Lewis on -3 after 9

Be interesting to see how this pans out if the wind gets up! Am loving watching this as I'm booked upto to go out to S/A and play it next month going away for the school half term and as Mavettes birthday falls in that gap she's playing it with me

Did you see that Colsaerts had 9 birdies and 2 pars in the last 11 holes.
Some golf that!

Watching a delayed broadcast on the Golf Channel over here and the course certainly looks inviting. Mav is a lucky SOB to be going there next month. Can't say that Colsaerts' first round was to be expected but he did finish 20th and 19th respectively towards the end of last season at the WGC-HSBC Champions and the Dubai World Championship. Could be a late bloomer as he's only 29 years old and got his first victory at the Volvo China Open last year. Can't believe he's played ET and Challenge Tour events for over a decade now. Did make 19 of 23 cuts last year.

Two eagles and 4 bogeys in Lawrie's round.

Oh dear Nicolas is imploding, two shots behind now, 3 over today.

The old guard are shifting up a gear. Olly, Padraig, Thomas B, Big D.

Did anyone see Monty last night. Looks like he's borrowed Laura Davies's body this year.

ScottieD18 wrote:Did anyone see Monty last night. Looks like he's borrowed Laura Davies's body this year.

Haven't seen much of the coverage yet! Has Monty got that big!

I don't care what people say I like Monty! He's a miserable git but I like the way in a world of perfect swings he stuck with what he has and Majors apart he is one of the best player europe has ever produced

If this keeps up, they're going to start asking what was wrong with Branden Grace the first tourney of the year when he only finished 14th at the Africa Open. It'll be interesting to see how he plays outside of South Africa once the ET events start moving to other parts.

Padraig dropped 4 shots on the last 3 holes.
He dosn't like that 18th, two sevens.

Like the look of this course. Although inland, it still manages to look very linksy.

Must be wild today, high scores. Only two players under par so far.

Doon the Water wrote:Must be wild today, high scores.

Does Pablo Martin's +17 qualify as wild and high?

2 bogeys, 4 doubles, 1 triple, 2 quadruples and no birdies. Yikes!

venice1 wrote:

Doon the Water wrote:Must be wild today, high scores.

Does Pablo Martin's +17 qualify as wild and high?

2 bogeys, 4 doubles, 1 triple, 2 quadruples and no birdies. Yikes!

incredible round, 10 pars and still finished +17

Nicholas Colsaerts eagles the last to go back in the lead...Wow.

Great to see Olly competitive again, only two behind

All getting a bit tense out there.

Don't think anyone can deny that the hottest golfer in the world is a South African playing on the European Tour. And very few even knew Branden Grace a few weeks ago. Wonder what his upcoming tournament schedule looks like and how he's going to perform. That'll give us a better reading on the still 23 year old sudden sensation.

If my memory serves me correctly that'll make 5 South African wins in the last 7 events! Not bad going aye?!

To think he only got his card at Q school last month and now he's a double ET winner already. What a way to win as well beating Els and the Goose 2 iconic south african players, changing of the guard perhaps?

Mav,

Hopefully this will be a changing of the guard that stands for a while and there's no reason to believe it won't. Those Saffers are starting to make a mockery of things. Who else is going to come jumping out of their closet within the next year or so?

Fantastic golf to watch over the weekend - thrilling stuff at the end and great to see the likes of Ernie and Olly playing well again.

Agree with gael - it's a superb inland links course which showed it has teeth (as on Saturday) but can yield lots of birdies and eagles as well. Much more exciting than the turgid stuff from the US of A! Amazing to think it was created out of nothing with all those tons of earth being brought in to create the humps and hollows. The mountain backdrop was pretty awesome too.