Andreas Hartø is hoping to recapture his best form when he returns to the site of one of his finest career performances at the D + D REAL Czech Challenge.
The Dane held off a strong challenge from compatriot JB Hansen to secure a three shot victory at the 2012 edition of the Dříteč tournament.
Returning to Golf & Spa Kunětická Hora, the 27 year old is looking to return to winning ways and add to his three European Challenge Tour titles.
“I’m really looking forward to going back to the Czech Republic,” said Hartø, who claimed his first Challenge Tour trophy as an amateur at the 2010 ECCO Tour Championship in his native Denmark.
“It’s always nice to go back to a course where you’ve won and you’ve played well so it’s going to be good after a week off.
“Some tournament has to kick-start my season so it might as well be the Czech Challenge. I’ll give it my best and see if that’s going to be the week for me.
“I had a great week there in 2012. I felt like I made every putt and I could just see the lines there on the greens, but then I missed the cut there last year which was a bit of a disappointment.
“It’s always nice to go back to somewhere that you’ve won, and it suited my eye in 2012, who knows if it’s going to do so again in 2016.”
Hartø, who hit headlines around the world after he proposed to his then girlfriend Louise De Fries during the 2015 Made in Denmark event on the European Tour, made a fast start to life on the Challenge Tour in 2010, winning two of his first four tournaments.
The Copenhagen man, whose biggest career pay cheque to date came at the 2013 Volvo China Open when he finished seventh, graduated on to the European Tour after finishing third in the 2012 Challenge Tour Rankings, before battling it out at Qualifying School to regain his card a year later.
Now back on Europe’s top developmental tour, Hartø is optimistic that he can rediscover the game which made him a champion.
“It’s tough to say where my game is at after three missed cuts before Italy,” he said. “I’m struggling a bit at the moment but you never know with this game, it goes up and down and all of a sudden you can find it and you can shoot low numbers.
“Right now I’m just trying to find some sort of game that I can compete with or try to compete with, but I might find that in the Czech Republic, you never know.”
