Westwood looks the danger in Hilversum
BY Bruce Young | European PGA Tour | 2011 KLM Open | Preview | 07 Sep 2011
The European Tour is in Hilversum in the Netherlands this week for the KLM Open at the Hilversumche Golf Club, the venue for the tournament for the majority of occasions the tournament has been played as a European Tour event.
Martin Kaymer gets the chance to atone for his near miss last week in Switzerland when he attempts to defend the title he won last year but if he is to do so then he will need to hold at bay two other high class players and both of whom also played well last week, Rory McIlroy and Lee Westwood.
A quality field has been assembled, in fact a field not dissimilar to that which played last week at the Omega European Masters although the winner then, Thomas Bjorn, is not amongst the line-up this week.
Lee Westwood is a former winner over this layout and was impressive enough last week when 6th in Crans sur Sierre. Westwood won the event or its equivalent, the Dutch Open, in 1999. Westwood has strung together three consecutive top tens and is therefore playing well enough to win his third event of 2011.
McIlory played well enough, when 3rd last week in his first start since the arm injury at the PGA Championship, to be a genuine chance to return to the winner’s circle for the first time since his emphatic US Open victory.
Simon Dyson has played well for much of this season and has been a previous winner of this tournament albeit at another venue. He finished 16th last week and might just be factor. Working against Dyson is that he missed the cut in this event last year but he had also missed the cut at the Irish Open in 2010 before winning this year.
Australasian chances rest with Marcus Fraser, Scott Strange, Michael Campbell, Brett Rumford, Matthew Zions, Mark Brown, Daniel Gaunt and Wade Ormsby.
Michael Campbell did well last week when he recorded his second best finish of the season. Many will be interested to see if he can go on with that improvement.
Discuss this article in our forums
