The DP World Tour calendar returns to action after a long summer break to fully enter the last third of the season, which will undoubtedly be the most exciting. It does so this week, starting tomorrow, Thursday, with the D+D REAL Czech Masters, an event that has been earning its place and that, look where you look, celebrates its tenth consecutive edition this year, with the same sponsor and a progressive increase in the prize pool over the last four years. Let’s say that this tournament in the Czech Republic has ceased to be a more or less filler stop, although it is obviously still far from the weeks with more substance.
The 2024 edition also comes with an important novelty. A course that debuts on the European circuit. The previous nine editions were played at the Albatross Golf Resort, located about twenty kilometres northwest of the centre of Prague, and now we are going about twenty kilometres northeast, where the PGA National OAKS is located. Let’s therefore make a small guide to know in advance what kind of challenge the players will have this week:
– It is not a short and technical course, quite the opposite, as it is around 7,000 metres long. But the fairways are quite firm and therefore it plays a little shorter.
– The rough does not currently present great difficulties, so on many holes the players can let loose from the tee. According to the pros from there, it is a course where the hitters gain even more advantage, because there are many bunkers located at that critical distance of 270/280 metres that they, the bombers (who are already legion, on the other hand), hardly even consider.
– The condition of the greens from Thursday will be key. They are moved, with very interesting flag positions, and are in perfect, magnificent conditions. The question is whether they will arrive firm on the first day and if they will even gain more firmness as the days go by. The plan established by the DP World Tour and the PGA National itself is that, indeed, they are very firm and very fast. We’ll see. If so, this course must be played with more caution to certain flag positions. Not much wind is expected, so this could be one of the great defences of a course that, let’s not fool ourselves, initially seems quite affordable for these players. Although, with nuances.
– The fundamental nuance. In general, the second nine holes are much more complicated than the first nine. There is a great imbalance in this sense. The first three holes have their crumb, in terms of difficulty, with a quite stressful exit on hole 2, for example. But from 4 to 9… Castilla is wide and a cascade of birdies, it seems. The ‘Castilla is wide’ becomes literal in the exit of 4, a par 5 that shares a very wide fairway with 9, another par 5 back. Then, in the second half of the course we find the longest par 4s on the course (10, 12 and 14) and the difficulty increases.
– Very good par 3s, with a little monster, yes, on the penultimate hole, 17, of more than two hundred metres. It is known that excess distance does not usually determine the level of excellence of the short holes; in fact, the most famous and interesting par 3s in the world are usually quite short… But we will have to see how this end ‘works’ in the Czech course.
– In general, it seems an ideal week to avoid the bunkers from the tee, many of them certainly deep and that can complicate the second shots quite a lot if the ball is not far enough from the slope.
The tournament features the presence of the European Ryder captain, Luke Donald, who will play Thursday and Friday alongside Romain Langasque, as well as the exotic touch of Jason Dufner and Brandt Snedeker, invited.
We have there eleven Spaniards who return with their batteries charged after such a prolonged break, of four weeks in some cases. Namely: Manu Elvira, Adri Arnaus, Nacho Elvira, Adrián Otaegui, Alejandro del Rey, Rafa Cabrera Bello, Sebas García, Alfredo García Heredia, Ángel Hidalgo, Santi Tarrio and Iván Cantero.
