If The World Cup Was A Match Play Golf Tournament Who Would Win? Part 1

2018 World Cup Of Golf Quarter Finals

We take a look at the 2018 World Cup in Russia and see what would happen if the football players stepped down and we replaced them with the best golfer from each country and played a match play golf tournament. See who we think would make the semi-finals…

This would appear to be a walk over for France and they probably could select any one of their players saving their big guns for the semi-final. Uruguay could put up Juan Alvarez who plays on the Latinoamerica PGA Tour but despite his recent good form he shouldn’t beat whoever the French select and Alex Levy should have little trouble in progressing.

The pick of the quarter finals  and very difficult to predict the outcome. Sweden would presumably select Alex Noren who is in very good form and is currently second in the Race to Dubai. However he is 14^th in the World rankings whilst Justin Rose is third. On paper then Rose would be favourite but unless his putting improves significantly I can see Noren sneaking it with a last-minute winner. Wouldn’t be surprised though if it went to penalties.

A one-sided affair on paper with Brazil probably selecting Alexandre Rocha who is currently playing on the Web.com Tour and Belgium playing Thomas Pieters. Pieters Ryder Cup experience and all-round strength of his game should see him comfortably through. It would be a major shock if he got beat.

Both teams will struggle to find a player of any quality and there wont be many spectators at this game. With no players ranked in the world’s top 200 players Russia may have to rely on local knowledge to gain an advantage. They will probably select Andrey Pavlov who was the first Russian player to make the cut in a European Tour event but he doesn’t play in many events nowadays, so Vladimir Osipov may be an alternative choice if they go for a younger player. Croatia have only one professional golfer to choose from so Marko Stepinac will be representing them. On current form he looks the likely winner.

Next week we take a look at the semi final pairings!