Magical Kenya Open Presented by Absa – Fantasy DP World Tour ones to watch 

The DP World Tour returns to Muthaiga Golf Club as a three-event African swing gets under way with the Magical Kenya Open presented by Absa.

After a rare rest week on the schedule, Wu Ashun defends his title while 2023 season winners Marcel Siem and Antoine Rozner join Rafa Cabrera Bello and Robert MacIntyre in the field.

If you have not done so already, you can sign up to play the official 2023 DP World Tour Fantasy game and submit your six-man team before round one gets under way on Thursday: https://fantasy.dpworldtour.com/

The 2023 season-long winner will win a trip to the DP World Tour Championship in Dubai next year, enjoy a lesson with a DP World Tour professional and a round of golf on the Earth Course at Jumeirah Golf Estates. For more information on this amazing prize and others, read here.

Favourite – Robert MacIntyre

The Scot is making his second appearance at the Magical Kenya Open after finishing in a tie for 17th on debut when it was held at Karen Country Club in 2019. MacIntyre went on to record three runner-up finishes that season as he finished 11th in the Race to Dubai Rankings in Partnership with Rolex and picked up the Sir Henry Cotton Rookie of the Year award. He will hope his return to Kenya can ignite his 2023 season in a similar fashion as he looks to climb up the Official World Golf Ranking. After impressing at the inaugural Hero Cup, contributing three out of a possible four points for Great Britain and Ireland, the two-time DP World Tour winner backed it up by finishing 20th at the opening Rolex Series event of the year in Abu Dhabi. He has since missed just one cut in his next four starts and will look to put himself in contention as he targets more Ryder Cup qualification points. The 26-year-old finds himself picked by over 22 per cent of players so far this week, continuing his trend of featuring among the ten most popular picks since the start of the Asian swing.

Form Horse – Marcel Siem

It’s been some start to the season for the 42-year-old German. After regaining his playing privileges for the 2023 campaign through the Qualifying School, Siem has barely put a foot wrong. He made a long-awaited return to the DP World Tour winner’s circle after an eight-year wait with victory at the Hero Indian Open last month. He is the highest-ranked player in the Race to Dubai Rankings in Partnership with Rolex in the field this week at eighth and is looking to make it an eighth consecutive appearance of the campaign without a missed cut. In addition to claiming the fifth DP World Tour title of his career last time out, he has registered five further top 20s so far this season. His one and only other appearance at Muthaiga came on the Challenge Tour in 2002 when he finished 26th. But with confidence in his game sky high, it comes as no surprise that he is the third most popular pick among Fantasy players for this week’s event with 36.08 per cent. In addition, as if you needed further convincing, he is averaging 175 points per counting event – bettered by only five other players.

Wild card – Jens Fahrbring

The Swede arrives at an event and a venue where he has fared strongly in the past as he seeks that elusive DP World Tour title. He lost to Lorenzo Gagli in a play-off at Muthaiga in 2018 in the event’s final staging on the Challenge Tour. Three years earlier, he finished fifth in Kenya’s national open at Karen Country Club. The 2015 Challenge Tour graduate also has a recent record of challenging in this continent after a third-place finish at the Investec South African Open Championship earlier this season. On the back of making his last two cuts during the recent Asian Swing, he will now look to be challenging towards the top of the leaderboard once again. After Dan Bradbury and Ockie Strydom became first-time winners on the DP World Tour earlier in the campaign, could this week be Fahrbring’s moment to shine?

Looking back – Hero Indian Open

Champion Siem featured in 16.74 per cent of teams at DLF Golf and Country Club, but just 1.76 per cent of those Fantasy players had him as their captain. Thorbjørn Olesen - the second most popular pick and our Favourite last time out – finished in a tie for sixth, while followers of our column will have seen both Form Horse Jeunghun Wang and Wild Card SSP Chawrasia made the cut in India, finishing in a tie for 32nd and 48th respectively.

2023 DP World Tour Fantasy player rankings