Ben Coley landed last year’s Open de France winner at 150/1. Find out who he’s keen on as the tournament moves to a temporary home.
Golf betting tips: Open de France
1.5pts e.w. John Parry at 40/1 (General 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
1pt e.w. Ewen Ferguson at 55/1 (Sky Bet, Paddy Power, Betfair 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
1pt e.w. Wenyi Ding at 75/1 (General 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
1pt e.w. Guido Migliozzi at 100/1 (Sky Bet, Paddy Power, Betfair 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
1pt e.w. Lucas Bjerregaard at 200/1 (General 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
0.5pt e.w. Hamish Brown at 300/1 (bet365 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8; 250/1 general)
Sky Bet odds | Paddy Power | Betfair Sportsbook
When Le Golf National closed as part of a project to expand the Paris underground network, the natural place for the Open de France to find temporary residency was at Saint-Nom-la-Breteche. Not only is it just a short drive north from the 2024 Olympic Games host course, but it is a tour-ready venue which has hosted this championship and others before. Most recently, the two combined for the 2022 Eisenhower Trophy.
A composite of Red and Blue courses will be used and to be honest it’s a little difficult to get a handle on the routing, but at under 7,000 yards it is not long. There looks on the face of it to be a blend of scoreable and difficult holes – the par-fives should be a picnic for players of this standard – but those bemoaning any perceived easing of the difficulty level should remember that Le Golf National hasn’t been anything like as tough in its new autumn slot.
By my count, seven players in this field took part in the Eisenhower Trophy, which may well benefit them, but recent form clues are otherwise hard to find. It’s a pity that Victor Dubuisson, who briefly came out of retirement to win an Alps Tour event and then gave his winner’s cheque away, couldn’t be tempted to accept a sponsor’s invite at a course he knows well, whereas Antoine Rozner says he’s never played here before despite being a Parisian.
Maybe the Seve Trophy will help us somewhat. In the first edition played here, Anders Hansen, Chris Wood and Francesco Molinari were the standout performers, and the fact that they are winners of the BMW PGA is moderately interesting. I am though more drawn towards a broader point, underlined by the 4-0-0 partnership between Gregory Bourdy and Joost Luiten four years later, which is that it was the shorter, more precise players who thrived.
This is further supported by some even more dated form, from the Trophee Lancome, where Sergio Garcia won around the turn of the century, and both Paul McGinley and Carlos Rodiles were second. The latter was fourth at Wentworth but came closest to winning at Valderrama, scene of McGinley’s finest hour as a player and a course Garcia made his own. Again it’s not so much about drawing a direct connection, just to say that Saint-Nom-la-Breteche may be similarly to do with accuracy and finesse.
At the head of the betting, I was hoping to be able to side with Corey Conners but doing so at 11/1 is difficult given his famed strike-rate, which so far is two-from-200 on the PGA Tour and both at the same course. He will like this place, faster greens and better weather than last week may help, elite ball-striking for 76-67 and a one-shot missed cut is about as eye-catching as it gets, but price has to dictate.
I am nevertheless keen on players with that sort of skill set, with accurate driving and quality approach play the preferred formula. The best defence here is the greens, which are fast and undulating, so the mission is to find players capable of hitting them regularly and missing in the right spots when they don’t.
JOHN PARRY ranks first among the DP World Tour regulars in this field in strokes-gained approach and it’s not especially close, which is part of the reason for making him the first of a speculative bunch.
Parry has been a model of consistency from tee-to-green this season, this time ranking second only to Luiten, and that continued in two rounds of 72 at Wentworth last week. Parry’s record there remains poor so to see him strike the ball so well is encouraging; he was in fact the best ball-striker to miss the cut, Conners included.
Clearly, we’re going to need some help from that troublesome putter of his but he’d gained strokes a week earlier and season’s-worst figures will hopefully soon look like an anomaly. His previous worst came in the PGA Championship and, days later, he ranked a very decent 21st in Belgium, while he produced a similar turnaround from Open to Nexo Championship earlier this summer.
It’s a bit of a guessing game in that regard but we should be able to rely on his usual blend of fairway-finding and crisp approach shots, and it’s one which saw him win the Open de Bretagne last year on his way to battlefield promotion back to the DP World Tour. For one who has been down to the EuroPro circuit and back, to then go and win in Mauritius was deeply impressive.
France plays a big part in Parry’s whole career. Back in 2009, his very first win came in Toulouse. That led, less than a year later, to his second, this time in Chambourcy, which is just 20 minutes from this week’s venue. Two became three on the HotelPlanner Tour in 2024, and three could well become four if he finds this course as suitable as I think he might.
Parry is currently eighth in the Race to Dubai, but more importantly sixth among those who don’t yet have PGA Tour cards, down two places after Wentworth. He’s one big week from completing a phenomenal journey and we’ll take a chance on it coming here, in France, on the strength of a much better putting display.
Some players in this field will be delighted to get away from Le Golf National for a year but I can’t fathom whether or not EWEN FERGUSON will be one of them.
The Scot plays well there but blew a good lead with a closing 76 two years ago and again played poorly when not out of things entering round four last year, so perhaps a temporary change of scenery will be good for the soul as he seeks his fourth DP World Tour title.
Last summer brought the most recent of them, at a tree-lined, parkland course in Germany, and the previous one had come at Galgorm Castle, a course where straight drivers and quality iron players like him tend to thrive.
Significantly, both these and even his slightly more surprising Qatar breakthrough came after signs of promise in previous weeks. He’d contended twice in the run-up to Eichenried, had been inside the top 10 for most of his start immediately prior to Galgorm Castle, and Doha came four weeks after he’d blown a big lead in the Kenya Open, with solid golf between the two.
The tournaments we’re talking about here all fit with his profile and so does the Soudal Open, where he ought to have won in the spring before finishing fourth the following week. Right through his career, Ferguson has emerged from a slump to string together big finishes and that’s what makes last week’s top-five at Wentworth potentially such a big clue as to his prospects on another parkland course here in Paris.
Although it ended with a mistake off the 18th tee when chasing an eagle which wouldn’t have been enough regardless, Ferguson took plenty from the way he performed alongside Patrick Reed and Matt Fitzpatrick and said he was eager to get back to work, telling The Scotsman: “I felt like I’d held my own all day playing alongside two major champions and I will take a lot from that.”
He’s seen his practice partners Connor Syme, Calum Hill and Richard Mansell all win this year and Ferguson, buoyed by his best Rolex Series performance yet, can join them in the winners’ circle.
Of the Eisenhower Trophy group, French duo Martin Couvra and Tom Vaillant were always going to be popular, but the home player I was most drawn to was Frederic Lacroix. He’s won an amateur event here, hails from Paris and has form at some of the courses mentioned, but he’s not exactly firing and were this being held in another country, we’d be getting three-figure prices that better reflect the apparent state of his game.
Instead, I’ll take a chance on WENYI DING, who was a decent 25th in the Eisenhower Trophy a month after he’d become the first Chinese player to win the US Junior Amateur, rising to third in the world thanks to an excellent career at Arizona State.
The reasoning for this one is simpler than I can sometimes make it sound, and it’s how well he’s performed when going back to courses he’s played before. So far this season that’s happened three times and he’s been fifth (Australia), 14th (Singapore, reduced to 54 holes) and eighth (China), three of his best four results overall.
With the other of those having come on a tree-lined course in Turkey where Couvra won, plus a very respectable 20th in Kenya and 14th in Joburg, this promising all-rounder might just enjoy having a second crack at Saint-Nom-la-Breteche, where he shot rounds of 72-68 three summers ago to finish alongside Sam Bairstow and just ahead of Couvra.
More recently, he missed the cut with two level-par rounds at Crans, one approach shot in round two proving very costly, and then couldn’t get into the BMW PGA field from his lowly category. Hopefully fresher than some after a busy six weeks of DP World Tour golf and with his iron play showing signs of improvement of late despite that Swiss mishap, Ding, who possesses a sharp short-game, can remind us all of his ability.
Easier to justify is GUIDO MIGLIOZZI, who I must admit I wasn’t convinced by until he backed up some approach-play improvements in Ireland when leading the field last week at Wentworth.
The Italian will have been frustrated no doubt that this upturn has coincided with a downturn in his putting, which had previously powered 13th in Crans and a decent British Masters, but things could just come together now and if he can club down off a few tees, then all the better.
Migliozzi has struggled with driver all season and missed far too many cuts, but he’s back inside the top 100 on the Race to Dubai now and is precisely the type to pounce if this ball-striking improvement lasts. That’s exactly what he did last spring, when he led the field in approach play in Belgium then went 8-1 over the following fortnight, and in 2022 when his smash-and-grab in this very event came a week after he’d struck it much better in Italy.
A winner in Belgium, France and the Netherlands as well as at a tree-lined course in Kenya, Migliozzi should relish this return to France, where he also won a good amateur title as a teenager, and improvements in his iron play have always been a big pointer. Perhaps that’ll prove the case again and while popular since betting opened, his ceiling is high enough to be taking anything 66/1 and upwards.
I did wonder whether last year’s hero Dan Bradbury might put up a good defence, which is what he did when third in Joburg. He’s hitting it well, accuracy both off the tee and on approach is what his game is all about, and the only two players who bettered Sunday’s 66 were Si Woo Kim and Rory McIlroy.
The worry for me is that his short-game is a big problem and while the putter has improved lately, his chipping hasn’t. Given that these greens are more dramatic than those at Le Golf National, siding with a player ranked 162nd this season and 157th last in strokes-gained around the green isn’t something I want to be doing.
Darius van Driel made some appeal as a Rinkven contender who previously won in Kenya and has shown more lately, including for much of Sunday’s final round at Wentworth, but I’ll sign off with two Danes with upside at massive odds.
First is LUCAS BJERREGAARD, who has been in eye-catching form since returning from the summer break, with finishes of eighth and 14th among his last four starts.
The two-time DP World Tour winner missed the cut on the number when making nothing in the Irish Open last time and, between those two better results, had missed the cut at the Belfry too, but that’s the wrong course for him and one sub-70 round in 14 tries says as much.
Five top-30s in his las 10 starts demonstrate that he’s started to find his game again after a miserable start to his return season, and it might just be in the nick of time as he’s 140th in the Race to Dubai and has the class and experience to produce the big results he needs over the next six weeks.
Having only earned promotion last year via a technicality, he’ll know all too well that the reduction of available cards from 20 to 15 on next year’s HotelPlanner Tour and this year’s Q-School makes life very difficult and I think we’ve seen enough from his long-game lately to believe that something good is around the corner.
He really did putt miserably in Ireland but it was the third time in four that he gained strokes off the tee, with his approach shots and around the green, and we know he’s very streaky with putter in hand. It was at around this time last year that he started to contend regularly and I’m willing to chance a repeat.
Although Bjerregaard’s two wins so far came on exposed courses in Portugal and Scotland, he has performed well on tighter ones including Wentworth, Fanling, and Crans. At 200/1 he’s a fun each-way bet at a course which looks more suitable than Le Golf National.
Jacob Skov Olesen is a more sensible compatriot to side with and his tee-to-green numbers are good, but I’m drawn to HAMISH BROWN.
He was down the field in the Eisenhower Trophy here in 2022 but at least has some course experience, and that might help him make a move from his similar predicament to Bjerregaard’s, with one place between them in the Race to Dubai standings.
He’s hinted at better lately, too, first with a strong start at Crans, then when sitting inside the top 10 after rounds two and three of the Irish Open, where he struggled under the gun on Sunday, knowing no doubt that one good round would’ve secured his card for next year.
Notably, last season’s two HotelPlanner Tour wins both immediately followed something similar, first when fading from second to 26th in Spain, then when it was round two which cost him in Italy where he otherwise played very well.
Maybe this quick learner can put the lessons of the K Club to use in similar style and while patchy, his iron play has at times this year been a real strength, including when he gained a shot per round on the way to his one top-10 finish to date.
Brown is a proper flier but in an event where there’s plenty we can’t know, his little hints combined with the fact he’s played this course before and should on paper be well enough suited to it, are enough for a speculative one at 200-plus.
Posted at 1900 BST on 15/09/25
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