The 2015 European Senior Tour season reaches its climax this week in the MCB Tour Championship, where Colin Montgomerie will again be crowned the winner of the Order of Merit and Paul Wesselingh is seeking a historic third successive victory.
A total of 52 players will converge on the magnificent Constance Belle Mare Plage, in Mauritius, for the €420,000 season finale, which Wesselingh won last year after a six-hole play-off with Barry Lane which tied the Senior Tour record.
After the duo had matched each other birdie for birdie for the first five play-off holes, Wesselingh claimed victory at the sixth time of asking with a par to Lane’s bogey to retain the title he had won 12 months previously.
Wesselingh said: “I just love the place and I love the course, it’s definitely my style of track and that’s been shown in my results the last couple of years. I feel very comfortable there, so I can’t wait to get back and try to make it three in a row.”
A hat-trick of victories would see Wesselingh eclipse the achievements of South African David Frost, who is seeking a third success of his own having lifted the trophy in 2010 and 2012.
Montgomerie is yet to add the MCB Tour Championship to his vast collection of silverware since joining the over-50s ranks, but regardless of whether or not he can improve on his sixth place finishes in the past two editions, the Scot is guaranteed to retain the John Jacobs Trophy.
Indeed, Montgomerie – whose lead over Peter Fowler, his nearest Order of Merit rival, is €406,433 –would break his own record for earnings in a single season with a top ten finish in Poste de Flacq.
He said: “To win the John Jacobs Trophy in my first two full seasons on the Senior Tour is a real honour, and hopefully I can round off another great year with a good performance in Mauritius.
“I’ve finished sixth there for the past two seasons, so any improvement on that would be very nice and another win would obviously be the perfect end to the season. But regardless of where I finish, I’m sure I’ll enjoy the tournament because it’s a beautiful place and a wonderful week.”
Other notable names in the line-up include Lane, who will be bidding to go one better this year as he seeks to overtake Fowler and finish the ‘best of the rest’.
Two-time Senior Major Champion Roger Chapman is also bound for Mauritius, as is Sam Torrance, one of seven former Ryder Cup players in the field.
Like Torrance, the other six – Paul Broadhurst, Gordon Brand Jnr, Lane, Montgomerie, Des Smyth and Philip Walton – are also looking to win the Championship for the first time.
Broadhurst, currently 14th on the Order of Merit thanks chiefly to his victory in the Prostate Cancer UK Scottish Senior Open, is also the leading contender to be crowned the Rookie of the Year.
His main rival for the award is China’s Lian-wei Zhang, currently six places behind Broadhurst thanks in part to his tied fourth finish behind the Englishman in Scotland.
