Sicilian Open Golf Tip: Lloyd Saltman

A new stop on the European Tour this week as we go to the Donnafugata Golf resort for the Sicilian Open. The pros will be playing on the North ‘Parkland’ course designed by Gary Player. With no previous course form to go on it is difficult to find any angle beyond going with the top ranked players. However I have found one.

The Sicilian Open isn’t a strong European Tour field, with all the best players in the States preparing for the Masters. This sort of event is ripe to produce a first time tour winner, or at least to see some unfamiliar names at the top of the leaderboard.

My pick this week is Lloyd Saltman; people may remember him winning the silver medal as leading amateur in the 2005 Open. He then went on to play a successful part in the 2007 Walker Cup, a team that contained many now successful pros. Team mates Rhys Davies, David Horsey, Rory McIlroy and John Parry, have all triumphed on the European Tour since.

With the WGC events going on, there haven’t been any serious European Tour competition for almost seven weeks, but there has been golf on the minor tours. A bit of digging shows that Saltman has been doing rather well away from the spotlight.

Playing on the Hi5 Pro Tour to keep his game ticking over, Saltman put in a phenomenal three rounds to win the 2011 Hacienda Del Alamo Open in February. With three rounds in the mid 60s he finished on -21; winning by 13 strokes, in a three round tournament! He then followed this up with a decent T21 in the recent Las Saurines Open, so his game is in rude health.

On the main European Tour his results this year have been good, with two cuts made in the Africa and Joburg Opens. The last of which resulted in a T20, in a field much better than this.

After getting his card at Q-school this needs to be the year where he makes his mark on Tour, especially when in such good form.