Hansen favourite in Portugal
BY Bruce Young | European PGA Tour | 2009 Estoril Open de Portugal | Preview | 01 Apr 2009
The Estoril Open de Portugal at the outstanding layout at Oitavos Dunes at Quinta del Marinha in Cascais Portugal, plays host to this week’s Estoril Open de Portugal.
The venue, located about 40 minutes west of Lisbon and on the coast of the North Atlantic Ocean, is an Arthur Hills designed layout and one of the first the prolific American designer has completed in Europe.
Last year’s three way tie eventually saw Gregory Bourdy run out the winner over David Howell and Alastair Forsyth.
The favourite in this week’s field is likely to be Anders Hansen who is in the middle of a very good run of late including a win at last year’s Volvo Masters and at the Joburg Open earlier this year. He is not the leading world ranked player however, that honour going to South African Louis Oosthuizen who will leave after this week’s event for Augusta National and his first title at the Masters.
Another South African, Thomas Aiken, has now put together six consecutive top ten finishes and his maiden win in Europe is surely close at hand. One of those top tens was a very impressive 7th at the WGC event in Doral.
Graeme Storm has played well at Oistavos Dunes in the past finishing third in 2007 and with a strong finish to last week’s event in Seville behind him his chance comes to do even better this week.
Alastair Forsyth is another who plays this course well and his 5th place finish last week in Seville is also a pointer to his chances.
Argentina’s Estanislao Goya’s missed cut last week in Spain might well have been a reaction to his maiden European Tour victory the week before and it would be no surprise to see this talented 20-year-old bounce right back and win.
Australasian hopes perhaps rest with Mark Brown although Matthew Millar, Wade Ormsby and Michael Curtain are also in the field.
