DFS Dish: 2023 Commerical Bank Qatar Masters

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The DP World Tour gets the spotlight this week and it’s not due to their announcement on handing out more playing chances to PGA Tour members.

With the PGA Tour dormant, that means boosted DFS prize pools for the DPWT circuit.

So, what event will draw our attention? It’s the Commercial Bank Qatar Masters at Doha Golf Club. This course brings plenty of history to the equation, having been used at this event since the late 90s, barring the 2020 and 2021 editions that were played elsewhere during a Doha renovation.

Location and grass type are two split stats we can dig into to find some DFS value options and I’m going to focus on the grass type first.

Putting Prowess on Paspalum

Bentgrass is the most common putting surface seen on the DP World Tour but paspalum is growing in popularity.

When course designer Peter Harradine did a recent renovation at Doha he made the switch to use Dynasty Paspalum. It’s a very salt-tolerant and drought-tolerant surface which is perfect for the area.

Here are the top performers in adjusted strokes gained per round when playing on courses with paspalum greens, over the last two years:

Thorbjorn Olesen
Rasmus Hojgaard
Matthieu Pavon
Pablo Larrazabal
Marcel Siem
Alexander Bjork
Zander Lombard
Richard Mansell
Scott Jamieson
Rikuya Hoshino
Alejandro Del Rey
Kazuki Higa
Jordan Smith
Wilco Nienaber
Daniel Gavins

We can also look at performance versus baseline to see who shows the largest increase in performance compared to their typical scores:

Daniel Gavins
Zander Lombard
Pablo Larrazabal
Marcel Siem
Matthieu Pavon
Rafa Cabrera Bello
Thorbjorn Olesen
Wil Besseling
Jeff Winther
Scott Jamieson
Rasmus Hojgaard
Matthew Jordan
Richard Mansell
Ross Fisher
Adria Arnaus

Overlap List: Names that show up on both lists include Thorbjorn Olesen, Rasmus Hojgaard, Matthieu Pavon, Pablo Larrazabl, Marcel Siem, Zander Lombard, Richard Mansell, Scott Jamieson, and Daniel Gavins.

Pavon is a recent winner and he could get right back into the mix if his past performance on paspalum is any indicator.

Olesen with converging trends at Doha

The 33-year-old Dane arrives with top-20 finishes in three of his last four starts including a T-9 finish last week at the Andalucia Masters. His irons have consistently been better than the field, positive positive adjusted strokes gained approach numbers in eight of his last 10 starts. On top of the good recent form, he also has a good history on paspalum, evidenced by his appearance on the overlap list above. He has more supporting evidence when diving into his course history at Doha as Olesen has a four-pack of top 25s on his course resume including a pair of podiums (T-3 in 2014; T-2 in 2016). The converging trends make him a nice DFS option to consider when looking for a name above $10K on DraftKings.

Larrazabal putting the puzzle pieces together at Doha GC

The Spaniard’s course results were okay but nothing to write home about from 2010 to 2017. Since then, he’s finished top 5 on the leaderboard in two of his last three visits to Doha GC. Last year was the first edition played with the new paspalum surfaces and Larrazabal finished 7th in strokes gained putting for the week (+5.24 SGP). He enters the week with middling results in recent months but does have two wins on the season so the great play isn’t too far removed. Perhaps a return to some happy hunting grounds will provide that spark to get him back into contention.

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