Course overview: Royal Golf Club is a 7,261 yard, par 72 desert course. Some of you may vaguely remember Paul Casey winning his 2011 Volvo Golf Champions held here.
Built in 2008 and designed by Colin Montgomerie, recent renovations aim to improve the range of fair pin positions and create a larger, flatter putting surface in accordance with current DP World Tour specifications. Bunkers and greens have been rebuilt.
The course itself is exposed desert with moderately wide fairways leading to well-bunkered greens. Water was involved in the final stages of the round, and while Paul Casey shot 20 under in 2011, the general consensus is that the course poses quite a challenge when the wind is quite strong. .
As part of the refurbishment, the paspalum grass was removed from the putting surface, kept alive during the work, and then replaced, so it was in good condition for this week’s event. The flat greens will allow the course director to increase the speed of the stimp, so expect a fairly firm and fast surface this week.
An even split of 36/36 with two par 5s in each half, the stretch from 9th to 14th features three of the par 5s, two short par 4s, and the shortest par 3 on the track. Chances are you will get the most score. These will be featured on 6 holes.
tournament statistics. We have released the statistics of the main players in this week’s Bahrain Championship. This will help form an opinion on the players who might perform at this event.
As mentioned above, this is the first event and there are some very spotty stats available from the various tournaments held here, so the course history should be considered accordingly . current format | course form | 1st round leader statistics | Form/course total statistics.
Predictor model. The predictor models we published are: available here. As always, you can build your own models using the available variables.
course winner: 2020: MENA Tour, David Hague (207 strokes, 3 rounds). 2019: MENA Tour, Robin Roussel (204 strokes, 3 rounds). 2011: Volvo Golf Champions (European Tour) Paul Casey (268 strokes, 4 rounds).
weather forecast.Latest weather forecast for Bahrain It is here.
This week’s main feature will be fairly strong northerly winds across the region, which will lead to continued cloudy conditions and temperatures that will drop more or less into the 70s Fahrenheit.
Thursday looks to be the calmest of the four days with winds of 16 to 15 mph, but this layout could become a difficult surface as winds of 20 to 25 mph are expected from Friday onwards. There is a gender.
Tournament trends and important factors. Fortunately, we have some basic statistics from the event held here on the European Tour in 2011 and won by Paul Casey.
- 1cent: Paul Casey (-20); 303 yards (5th), fairway success rate 66.7% (25th), green success rate 74.1% (52nd), scramble success rate 71.4% (17th), putts per GIR Number 1.65 (6th place)
- 2n.d.: Peter Hanson (-19). 292 yards (28th), fairway success rate 73.2% (15th), green success rate 80.6% (17th), scramble success rate 78.6% (8th), putts per GIR 1.67 (8th)
- 2n.d.: Miguel Angel Jimenez (-19). 285 yards (48th), fairway success rate 76.8% (7th), green success rate 87.5% (1st), scrambling rate 88.9% (3rd), putts per GIR 1.78 (43rd)
- Fourth: Stephen Gallacher (-18); 310 yards (3rd), fairway success rate 46.4% (64th), green success rate 87.5% (1st), scrambling rate 55.6% (50th), per GIR 1.71 putt (16th place)
- Fiveth: Robert Carlson (-17); 307 yards (4th), fairway success rate 78.6% (4th), green success rate 66.7% (63rd), scrambling rate 87.5% (4th), putts per GIR Number 1.63 (3rd place)
It’s been 13 years since Paul Casey won here in our only analysis and there have been renovations, so be careful, but most of the changes have come from the second shot; I think we can infer a little from this isolated data point.
Fairways are said to be very forgiving, which is evident from the statistics, and 60%+ accuracy is fairly common. The differentiators were either players who were relentless in their GIR performance, or players who scrambled and putted well enough when they missed the green to stay in the competition.
As for the top five scoring structure, there were many different ways to compete, similar to the skill stats above.
- Paul Casey: Par 3: -3; Par 4: -3; Par 5: -14; Eagles: 2; Birdies: 22. Bogey/Worst: 5
- Peter Hanson: Par 3: -2. Par 4: -4; Par 5: -13; Eagles: 3; Birdies: 19. Bogey/worst: 6
- Miguel Ángel Jiménez: Par 3: -1; Par 4: -11; Par 5: -7; Eagles: 1; Birdies: 22. Bogey/Worst: 5
- Stephen Gallacher: Par 3: -5; Par 4: -6; Par 5: -7; Eagles: 1; Birdies: 21. Bogey/Worst: 5
- Robert Carlson: Par 3: Even. Par 4: -10; Par 5: -7; Birdie: 20. Bogey/Worst: 3
Judging by Casey and Hanson’s totals, par 5s are clearly scoreable, but the other three finishers proved that scoring in bulk on par 4s is also a viable approach. The only consistent factor for all five finishers was that they kept their mistakes to a minimum throughout the week.
reception form: All of the top three finishers here in 2011 had finished in the top eight or better in one and five of their previous four starts.th There was a winner of the Dubai World Championship, as it was known at the time, placing Robert Carlson.
- Paul Casey: 74/3/MC/22/12/12/25/2/Four/6/6/18
- Peter Hanson: 6/37/34/8/58/1/19/MC/47/6/13/MC
- Miguel Angel Jimenez: MC/7/3/1/15/36/7/41/8/MC/48/11
- Stephen Gallasher: 27/18/16/14/MC/17/MC/MC/50/47/51/31
- Robert Carlson: 14/7/65/16/MC/42/29/2/34/Four/1
Stephen Gallasher was the only player to break into the top five 13 years ago, which would have been difficult to make a case for here on his current form.
Just looking at what we have to do this week, it seems like there are a lot of different approaches to success here under normal circumstances, but I think the forecast for some pretty big winds is going to change the equation a little bit. With 20mph winds blowing, I suspect this course will play much harder and the emphasis will be on quality ball striking and scrambling when it inevitably misses the greens. This is especially true when the renovated greens are solid, as is often the case.
My choices are: