Exploring Le Golf National: A Premier DP World Tour Venue
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00:00Let's start, though, Keith, as we always do, by telling us about Le Golfe Nationale, which
00:08of course the hardcore fans will know as a regular stop on the DP World Tour and the
00:13host of the Ryder Cup back in 2018.
00:18You know what, Mike?
00:19I think a lot of people, we could discount that Ryder Cup.
00:21The golf course was set up by the European Ryder Cup team to kind of handicap the Americans
00:26and win those matches, which they did boat race us in.
00:28So, I don't think we're going to see quite the design features that we did back then
00:34in 2018.
00:36But in the fall, every year, they play the Open Day France, and that is your DP World
00:41Tour event that is one of the premier ones.
00:43I mean, it is the French Open, per se, so it definitely gets a good feel, and they also
00:49set up a championship course there.
00:50I mean, this is a pretty elite venue.
00:53You have to think back to when the French Golf Federation built this place back in,
00:57you know, what, 30-something years ago.
00:59In the short history of this golf course, they've had a Ryder Cup, they've now had an
01:02Olympics, and every year, they have a premier DP World Tour event.
01:06So we have some history to call upon, especially for the Europeans, and I think that's important
01:10because there's 30 rookies in this field.
01:12You mentioned it.
01:13There's only 60 guys total.
01:15All four Americans are rookies.
01:17So with half the field with no course experience, this place is super quirky.
01:21You got to hit the fairways, and you got to come up with a game plan.
01:24A lot of doglegs, not a lot of trees, not a lot of great sightlines, things in the distance
01:29to look at.
01:30I think having confidence played here before in competition is a tremendous asset.
01:34You look at the top of the guys at the board, right?
01:37Of the six that are up there under 20 to 1, only two have played here.
01:41That's Rory and Rom, and they both had good history here.
01:43Rory with two top fives, Rom with two top tens.
01:47You also have to be a great long iron player here.
01:50On approach, some of these fairways, the guys have to lay back because of those dogleg positions.
01:54You got to be a good long iron player here.
01:56You're going to see over 50% of your approach shots coming from over 175 yards.
02:01You got a couple long par threes, certainly the second shots on par fives.
02:04And the third thing is that I want guys that can scramble.
02:08I want guys not necessarily just to get up and down for par, but scramble to score.
02:13Again, those par fives.
02:14And there's a bunch of short par fours where these guys are going to drive it down there
02:17and have a wedge less than 100 yards or some sort of finicky scoring shot.
02:22But I want guys like Xander Shoffley that can scramble with the best of them, hit it
02:27close, keep making birdies.
02:28I think this is going to be a little bit of a scoring fest in the high teens.
02:32We look at Rose was 16 under, Xander was 18 under.
02:35I think the Olympic Golf Committee likes a little showmanship, and I think that they're
02:39going to set it up accordingly.