Course Overview. Green Eagle Golf Courses is a collection of 42 holes spread across 3 courses in the ‘Lüneburger Heide’, a picturesque part of Germany on the outskirts of Hamburg.

The North Course is being used for this week’s event and the Michael Blesch design is a brute at 7,208 metres (7,882 yards) from its tips for its scorecard par of 73, however with 4 teeing areas on each of the holes there’s considerable flexibility as to how the course can be set up.

As you’d expect with a course of that length, the fairways are reasonably generous and the greens large and undulating so as to give players a chance of compiling some kind of score. Water is in play on all but one of the holes and an element of control is required to avoid paying the penalty for wild tee shots or approaches, however the reward for a safe navigation to the green is excellent quality putting surfaces.

Only 4 holes played under par 12 months ago, led by the 4^th of 6 (six) par 5s on the course at the 15^th which gave up 8 eagles and 146 birdies over the 4 rounds.

The par-5 11^th and 18^th both played marginally under par, as did the short par 4 7^th; however they were undoubtedly the exceptions to the rule.

Tournament Stats. We’ve published some key player statistics for this week’s European Open. Please note, the 2017-2019 and 2021-2023 renewals only were held at this venue. Current Form | Event Form | First Round Leader Stats | Combined Stats | SG Stats.

Event Winners. 2023: Tom McKibbin, 125/1; 2022. Kalle Samooja. 200/1; 2021, Marcus Armitage, 80/1; 2019, Paul Casey 7/1; 2018: Richard McEvoy 125/1; 2017: Jordan Smith 40/1; 2016: Alex Levy 45/1; 2015: Thongchai Jaidee 55/1.

Predictor Model. Our published Predictor Model is available here. As always you can build your own model using the variables available.

Weather Forecast. The latest weather forecast for Hamburg is here.

Sunshine and showers are the order of the day on Thursday after rain on Tuesday and Wednesday softens the course. Further rain is expected on Friday before conditions begin to improve over the weekend, with Sunday expected to be both dry and a little warmer at around 70 Fahrenheit. Winds will be generally light with some slightly stronger gusts on Saturday expected at the time of writing.

Tournament Trends & Key Factors. Looking back to the 6 events held here at Green Eagle, the eventual winners produced key stats as follows:

• 2023, Tom McKibbin (-9). 299 yards (16th), 67.3 % fairways (9th), 70.9% greens in regulation (6th), 66.7% Scrambling (6th), 1.84 putts per GIR (58th)
• 2022, Kalle Samooja (-6). 296 yards (13th), 61.5% fairways (33rd), 72.2% greens in regulation (2nd), 60.0% Scrambling (22nd), 1.79 putts per GIR (33rd)
• 2021, Marcus Armitage (-8, 54 holes). 276 yards (41st), 61.5% fairways (34th), 63.0% greens in regulation (38th), 70.0% Scrambling (6th), 1.68 putts per GIR (7th)
• 2019, Paul Casey (-14). 293 yards (12th), 69.2% fairways (8th), 81.9% greens in regulation (2nd), 46.2% Scrambling (49th), 1.76 putts per GIR (24th)
• 2018, Richard McEvoy (-11). 276 yards (62nd), 67.3% fairways (6th), 72.2% greens in regulation (8th), 55% Scrambling (8th), 1.67 putts per GIR (8th)
• 2017, Jordan Smith (-13). 296 yards (3rd), 71.2% fairways (7th), 73.6% greens in regulation (15th), 63.2% Scrambling (7th), 1.74 putts per GIR (16th)

The course played soft in 2017 following a lot of wet weather which effectively lengthened and widened the track, however to compensate the organisers moved a number of tee boxes forward to keep it relatively fair and Jordan Smith, who ranked 3rd for Driving Distance on the week, ultimately prevailed in a play-off against Alex Levy.

In 2018 it was much drier which brought some of the shorter hitters into the equation with no (recorded) player finishing inside the top 5 ranking in the top-50 for Driving Distance, including eventual winner Richard McEvoy who averaged a full 20 yards less off the tee than Smith the year before.

Paul Casey’s win in 2019 came in mixed conditions with temperatures struggling to hit the mid-60s Fahrenheit, and although the average driving distance of the top-5 finishers increased over the years before, it still wasn’t an out-and-out slugfest. We still saw, however, the kind of tee-to-green control that both of our winners here had demonstrated to that point, with each of the top 5 finishers ranking inside the 17 most accurate drivers on the week.

The 2021 win for Marcus Armitage came in dry and firm conditions with the event reduced to a 54-hole Saturday to Monday affair due to Covid. Despite the conditions, eventual winner Marcus Armitage only averaged 276 off the tee and the Englishman prevailed with an excellent performance on and around the greens which contrasts with his normally dependable tee-to-green game.

2022’s win for Kalle Samooja came at the highest winning score we’ve seen so far at just 6-under through 72 holes. Pre-event rain made the course play extremely long, which combined with a little wind made the test tougher than ever. In the end a final round 64 – which was 3 strokes better than anyone else could muster all week – saw the Finn scythe his way through the field for a maiden DP World Tour title.

And finally last year’s breakthrough win for Tom McKibbin came in largely dry conditions, although that didn’t help scoring massively and the Northern Irishman’s 9-under total was good enough to take the title.

Much of the length of this track comes from the par-5s; however that’s not to say that they’re all a pushover. Looking at 2019, Matthias Schwab (2nd) and Niklas Lemke (9th) co-led the field for par-5 scoring at -10; despite there being 20 looks at the par-5s, these were the best scores on display on the week on the long holes. Similarly in 2022 Samooja was just -7 for the par-5s over 4 days and McKibbin -9 12 months ago, so those who rely solely on that part of their game to get in contention may not have it all their own way here, despite the high number of par-5s on the card.

Strokes Gained: From a Strokes Gained perspective, rarely do we see such symmetry with SG Tee to Green featuring heavily for almost all of the contenders over the past 3 seasons, including the three eventual winners:

• 2023, Tom McKibbin: T: 4th; A: 8th; T2G: 6th; ATG: 43rd; P: 20th
• 2022, Kalle Samooja: T: 11th; A: 2nd; T2G: 1st; ATG: 3rd; P: 66th
• 2021, Marcus Armitage: T: 40th; A: 11th; T2G: 8th; ATG: 3rd; P: 7^th

In addition to McKibbin, Samooja and Armitage, Julien Guerrier, Max Kieffer and Marcel Siem, who all tied for 2^nd last year, ranked 5^th, 1^st and 2^nd for SG Tee to Green respectively. Richard Armitage and Victor Perez, who tied third in 2022, ranked 4^th and 2^nd for SG Tee to Green; similarly Thomas Detry, Edoardo Molinari, Matthew Southgate and Darius van Driel ranked 3^rd, 1^st, 6^th and 11^th on the same count the year before.

Key: T: SG Off the Tee; A; SG Approach; T2G: SG Tee to Green; ATG: SG Around the Green; P: SG Putting.

Incoming Form: Before the venue switched to Green Eagle GC in 2017, the previous two winners, Thongchai Jaidee and Alex Levy, had both recorded top-7 finishes on their previous start.

With the scheduling for the next 2 years falling immediately after The Open, Jordan Smith hadn’t played at that Major, however prior to that he’d recorded 7 straight cuts made without finishing any better than 20th at the Irish Open, whereas Richard McEvoy had won the week before on the Challenge Tour’s Le Vaudreuil Golf Challenge.

This event was played in early September in 2019 and Paul Casey triumphed having produced the 3rd-best 72-hole total at East Lake for the PGA Tour’s finale, whereas the 2021 schedule saw the event in an early June position and Marcus Armitage won having finished 8^th on his last start in Denmark the week before.

Kalle Samooja’s victory 2 years ago in the same spot on the calendar to this year came off the back of three straight missed cuts, however he had shown some form earlier in the year, eventually finishing 5^th at the Qatar Masters. Tom McKibbin’s win 12 months ago came after his form had picked up a little the week before in Holland, recording a 21^st place finish after 3 straight weekends off:

• 2023, Tom McKibbin: MC/36/12/MC/25/18/71/MC/MC/MC/21
• 2022, Kalle Samooja: 8/MC/12/MC/MC/74/60/5/38/MC/MC/MC
• 2021, Marcus Armitage: 6/45/61/54/47/MC/10/4/45/MC/MC/8
• 2019, Paul Casey: 9/MC/4/29/WD/21/5/57/27/13/24/3
• 2018, Richard McEvoy: MC/65/MC/MC/34/MC/15/MC/26/29/33/1
• 2017, Jordan Smith: 29/17/8/14/MC/48/40/21/44/30/20/58
• 2016, Alexander Levy: 2/63/14/4/28/34/WD/56/73/18/34/7
• 2015, Thongchai Jaidee: 2/10/MC/MC/11/10/31/65/50/57/MC/5

Course Form: In terms of course form, Paul Casey had finished 7th in 2018 before picking up the title a year later, whereas Richard McEvoy finished 28th on debut in 2017 where he led after the first round. Jordan Smith was making his competitive course debut in 2017, as were the rest of the field.

More recently Marcus Armitage had missed the cut in 2017, following a first round 73 with an 81 which was the worst round of the day; Kalle Samooja had finished 18^th on his previous attempt, however last year’s winner Tom McKibbin was making his course debut:

• 2023, Tom McKibbin: Debut
• 2022, Kalle Samooja: MC/18
• 2021, Marcus Armitage: MC
• 2019, Paul Casey: 7
• 2018, Richard McEvoy: 28
• 2017, Jordan Smith: Debut

Boiling it all down, this is a long, challenging course that presents scoring opportunities to aggressive players, but plotters can equally contend when it’s dry. Despite having 6 par-5s and a couple of short par-4s, this course isn’t a birdie-fest with -14, -13, -11, -8 (54 holes),-6 and -9 winning scores telling us that players will need to pick and choose when to attack this track.