Gavin

Green

Green slept on a three-shot lead on Saturday but saw that lead evaporate after rinsing his tee shot at the 14th which led to a double bogey. That was just his fourth blemish of the week but a very costly one. He limped home with four pars to finish one shot behind Max Kieffer. That included a lip-out birdie attempt at the closing hole. While it wasn’t the result he hoped for on Sunday, this runner-up finish snapped a 9-event DP World streak of finishing outside of the top 25 (he did post a runner-up finish on the Asian Tour in the lead-up to Prague) and vaults Green up to 68th in the DP World Tour Rankings.

The Malaysian reached as high as 146th in the Official World Golf Rankings during 2020 but took a huge nosedive this year. He settled for an 8-for-26 record on the DP World Tour with nothing better than a T17 on his resume. Where did it all go wrong? Green’s strokes gained approach rank dipped from 22nd in 2020 down to 160th last season. As a result, he’s fallen to exemption category 16c for the upcoming season which is for players who finished 162nd or worse in the Race to Dubai. That will result in far fewer starts on the DP World Tour. We saw him end the year with back-to-back starts on the Asian Tour which might be where we see him in 2022. It’s too early to give up on the potential for this 27-year-old but gamers will want to wait for a notable sign before considering a reinvestment.

The Malaysian had the best season of his young career last year on the Euro circuit. He went 14-for-18 with a trio of top 10s to finish 52nd in the Race to Dubai (17 slots better than his previous best). It seemed like the 27-year-old was on the rise and one to watch as a breakout star in 2021 at an international level. Instead, he’s gone 3-for-14 this season and currently sits outside of the top 220 in the Race to Dubai. Perhaps a return to Asia will spark some life into his game but with six straight missed cuts on his game log, it will be tough to trust him in weekly fantasy games.

The Malaysian opened his account in Saudi with rounds of 64-67, giving him hopes of landing a first European Tour win, but he struggled with the final nine holes at the weekend. On Saturday he dropped two shots on them, knocking himself out of the final group on Sunday. He bounced back early on, making birdies at the second and sixth, dropping just the one at the third. Suddenly in-contention, he then lurched to bogeys at the tenth and 11th, then 15th and 16th. He recovered with an eagle-2 at the 17th and birdie-4 at the 18th, good for a share of third, three blows behind the winner Graeme McDowell, but he’ll be hurting.

He’ll enter the final round in solo third place and three back from leader Graeme McDowell. Starting the day just one off the pace, the Malaysian birdied the first hole for the third straight day and, after seven pars, added another at 9 to lead at the turn. But with the wind blowing hard, he struggled on the tougher back nine and dropped successive shots at 14 and 15. The round could have got away from him after that but three closing pars kept him in the hunt for that breakthrough first victory. Green was also T11 in this event last year and today’s 70 was the first time he’s failed to break par in seven attempts at Royal Greens.

That’s a strong follow-up lap from the Malaysian and keeps him nicely on track to have a shot at a first European Tour win this weekend. Today’s afternoon round started with a birdie at 10 before he bogeyed the par-4 12th for the second day running. But after that he made fine progress with red circles at 15, 1, 4 and 6 taking him into a tie for the lead at 10-under with Perez before he dropped a shot at his penultimate hole to slip one behind. Adding in his four rounds which helped him take T11 in this event last year and the World No. 197 has now shot all six rounds in the 60s at this course, never going higher than 68. Clearly, the short par 70 is one he relishes.

Right now, that’s a shot clear of Swedish duo Sebastian Soderberg (17 holes) and Henrik Stenson (16) and two clear of English trio Andy Sullivan, Aaron Rai and Tom Lewis, who have all completed. Green showed his liking for the course when T11 in the inaugural edition last year after shooting 68-68-67-67. He lowered his best lap by three today thanks mainly to a blistering front nine. The Malaysian birdied the opening hole and then splashed red at 4, 6, 8 and 9 to be out in 30. He added another at 10 to be 6-under the card before a wobble with bogeys on 12 and 14. He regained those lost shots with back-to-back circles at 16 and 17. Green had the course form and some decent current form too after T21 (Abu Dhabi) and T27 (Dubai) in the previous two desert events. If it holds, this would be his fourth 18-hole lead on the European Tour (all have come since May 2018).

The big-hitting Malaysian had three top tens in four starts across June and July and also started September with T12 at Crans-sur-Sierre in Switzerland but since then he’s not managed better than T48 in five starts, missing two cuts. His lean patch continued with T50 in Turkey last week although the youngster did flash rounds of 69-67 in his middle two. He plays the Nedbank ranked 70th on the Race to Dubai so needs a big week to jump into the top 50 and punch his ticket to the season-ending DP World Tour Championship. He got a first look at Gary Player CC last year although had to settle for T57 after rounds of 75-70-78-72. His one other start in South Africa resulted in T19 at the 2017 Joburg Open.

After a strong summer the Malaysian has begun to struggle, but it might yet be a blip rather than a long term trend. Green featured in the top ten through the week in eight of nine starts from the Belgian Knockout to the KLM Open, albeit he actually managed just two actual top tens in that period. At the BMW PGA Championship he ended the week T72, concluding the event with a limp 80, and he missed the cut at the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship. He’s played the tournament once before, at Milano GC in 2017, when he shot 71-67-72 to miss the 54 hole cut.

The Malaysian was part of a seven-way tie for second behind early pace-setter Callum Shinkwin when he signed his card after painting his second nine red. He had started from the tenth tee and went birdie-bogey-birdie from the 11th then added another bogey at the 15th to limp towards the turn. But a birdie-4 at the 18th hinted at better things to come and the front nine confirmed it. He circled the first, third, fifth and eighth to join that pack just behind the leader and he will end the day inside the top ten, the seventh time that has happened in his last eight starts. He will now seek to maintain the pace and land a first top five since May.