Plotters and scramblers can tame French threat

Analyse the players who thrive at Le Golf National, and one point becomes clear: accuracy trumps power. Only three French Open champions since 2008 averaged more than 290 yards off the tee.

The fairways are tight and lined by links-style bunkering and kneehigh wispy rough, and if the dry weather in Versailles continues length will lose even more primacy.

Two Golf National specialists are Martin Kaymer and Graeme Mcdowell, with three titles and multiple top-10s between them. What do the pair also have in common? Both are US Open champions, the major feared for penalising errant teeshots. Tommy Fleetwood, 2017 champion in France, went close at this year’s US Open too.

So is the premium on straight driving good news for Europe? The numbers suggest so. On the PGA Tour this season, only three European team members found fewer than 60 per cent of fairways – Rory Mcilroy, Thorbjorn Olesen and Jon Rahm, unsurprisingly three of their longer hitters.

By contrast, eight of America’s team found the cut stuff less than 60 per cent of the time. Their extra firepower is a defence of their numbers, but Europe still emerge stronger when distance is accounted for.

In the Total Driving metric, which measures both length and accuracy, Europe have four players in the top 10 on the entire PGA Tour: Fleetwood, Francesco Molinari, Paul Casey and Justin Rose.

America have only three players in the top 40: Ricky Fowler, Bryson Dechambeau and Bubba Watson. European captain Thomas Bjorn has the freedom to set the course up as he chooses, and punishing rough might be the order of the day.

On a course where danger lurks at every corner, and three of their final four holes are guarded by water, the ability to recover from trouble is key. Mcdowell and Thongchai Jaidee are typical of the gritty scramblers to go well in Versailles.

Jaidee ranked second for scrambling – the statistic that measures a player’s ability to get the ball up and down after a missed green – when he won the French in 2016.

America have four players in the top 10 scramblers on tour this season: Webb Simpson, Fowler, Brooks Koepka and Patrick Reed. Mcilroy is ranked second, however.