The DP World Tour, after a break of over three weeks, restarts in the Czech Republic with the D+D REAL Czech Masters, which will take place from 15 to 18 August at the PGA National OAKS Prague, in Prague. Seven Italian players will be competing: Francesco Molinari, Edoardo Molinari, Lorenzo Scalise, Francesco Laporta, Renato Paratore, Filippo Celli and Andrea Pavan, who has a particular feeling with this nation where he won the tournament in 2018 and the D+D Real Czech Challenge, on the Challenge Tour, in 2023.
The DP World Tour, schedule
The only title on the circuit is defended by the Englishman Todd Clements, a 27-year-old from Colchester, who has little chance of repeating his success in a season that has been deficient so far, while four players with a good past, even if with an uncertain future, are attracting attention.
Two Major Champions, the English Danny Willett (Masters, 2016), eight titles on the DP World Tour, and the American Jason Dufner (PGA Championship, 2013), five successes on the PGA Tour. With them the other American Brandt Snedeker, nine titles and a FedEx Cup (2012), and Rory Sabbatini (six laurels on the PGA Tour in addition to the World Cup in 2003), born in Durban in South Africa from a family of Italian, Scottish and Irish origins.
Naturalized Slovakian, he then won the silver medal at the Tokyo Olympics. In the field six seasonal winners, the Dutch Darius Van Driel, the Swede Jesper Svensson (higher in the Race To Dubai, ninth), the Spaniards Adrian Otaegui and Nacho Elvira, the American Jordan Gumberg and the Scot Ewen Ferguson, all with the possibility of repeating.
And others capable of livening up the event such as the Finnish Sami Valimaki, the German Yannik Paul, the Northern Irishman Tom McKibbin, the Frenchman Romain Langasque, the Englishmen Dale Whitnell and Daniel Brown, the South Africans Robin Williams and Thomas Aiken, the Japanese Ryo Hisatsune and the Chinese Ashun Wu.
Francesco Molinari, another Major Champion in the field, returns to the tour after taking part in the Scottish Open and The Open (his in 2018). For him a fifth place in January in the Dubai Invitational. The latest outings of Edoardo Molinari and Lorenzo Scalise were not successful (three cuts suffered by both), Francesco Laporta slowed down, after a good half of the season, and Renato Paratore has only won once in the last twelve events in which he has taken part.
Positive notes from Filippo Celli, tenth in a row in the KLM Open and the Italian Open and ninth in the BMW International Open, and from Andrea Pavan, fourth in the KLM Open and fifth in the National Open in Cervia. The prize pool is $2,500,000 with a first prize of $425,000.
The tournament, born in 2014, has reached its tenth edition. In addition to Clements and Pavan, a third past winner will be competing, the German Maximilian Kieffer (2022) and a runner up, the Spaniard Adri Arnaus (2019). Previously, the Czech Open was held between 1990 and 2011, with various interruptions.
From the third edition, in 1994, to the tenth and last in 2011 (then cancelled due to lack of funds), except for a passage on the Alps Tour in 2008, it was part of the DP World Tour calendar, when it was called the European Tour, and was the first event organized in Eastern countries after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Even before that, from 1935 to 1938, the Czechoslovak Open was held, won twice by the great English champion Henry Cotton, who in that period also won an Italian Open (1936, GC Sestriere).