After the recent stretch of five massive events, this week sees the Tour touch down in Moscow, Russia, for the M2M Russian Open. The €1,000,000 event has been won twice by Mikael Lundberg before a hiatus from 2008-2012. The tournament returned to the schedule last season, with Michael Hoey triumphing over a host of players. The host course is the Tseleevo Golf & Polo Club, designed by Jack Nicklaus. The length is 7,491 yards (par 72) and let's hope that the weather is better after last year's rainy conditions. Hoey was planning on returning to defend his title, but had to withdraw after picking up an injury in The Open Championship. The favorite has to be Scott Jamieson, who finished T8 in the Aberdeen Asset Management Scottish Open to book his place in the year's third major, where he missed the cut. Other contenders should be Morten Orum Madsen, Thomas Pieters, David Horsey, and Craig Lee. Personally, it would be great to see Nick Dougherty, David Higgins, Fredrik Andersson Hed, Gary Boyd, Phillip Price, Liam Bond, and Alistair Forsyth perform well in this extremely weak field. Former tennis #1 Yevgeny Kafelnikov, who turned professional three years ago, is looking to make his first professional cut after numerous missed cuts after he's struggled to break 80. Unfortunately, the quality of the field is probably the worst of the season, but it does provide a chance for those players way down on the Race to Dubai or players without their playing rights to possibly win or claim a nice chunk of the prize fund. The field of 112 is the smallest of the season for a "full field" Tour event. TV coverage in the United States is on Golf Channel (Thursday and Friday: 8-11am; Saturday and Sunday: 6-9am).
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