Nordea Masters top 10 power rankings

On paper Alexander Lévy is not as strong as Alex Noren but a look at his record of recent performances suggests that perhaps there’s more to the young Frenchman than his rankings suggest.

Lévy has recorded a win and two top-10 finishes in his last five European Tour starts. His solo fourth-place finish at the Maybank in February seems to mark the onset of a surge. He followed in early April with a T-8 at the Shenzhen International and immediately followed with his first 2017 win at the Volvo China Open. He slumped a bit at the BMW PGA Championship but Lévy doesn’t look to be finished with his 2017 run.

Alexander Lévy and Alex Noren have remarkably similar games. Both are adequate but not outstanding drivers of the ball and both are competitive on the putting surface. Lévy, who’s hitting slightly more than 71 percent of the greens in regulation, lags slightly behind Noren for the season, but in any given round I’d look for them to be playing each other shot-for-shot.

Lévy’s advantage this week, if it is actually an advantage, is that he’s probably a bit more rested than Noren. That may or may not make a difference come Sunday afternoon.