Challenge Tour Number One Robert Dinwiddie is eyeing a big week in St Omer as he looks to seal a return to The European Tour.
Dinwiddie, who captured the Kenya Open and leads the Challenge Tour Rankings with €44,455, underlined the importance of the €600,000 event, which can make or break a Challenge Tour player’s season.
He said: “It is a big week for the Challenge Tour boys – if you look at the prize money on offer, it is the tournament that stands out because the money is so high compared to a normal Challenge Tour event. Obviously you want to win there, but for me, even a top four finish could give me enough money to win my place back on The European Tour. That would be great – to get the card back with half the season to go would allow me to play out the rest of the season without any worries.”
Other notable names in the field include in-form Andrew Coltart and his fellow Ryder Cup players Peter Baker of England and Joakim Haeggman of Sweden, whilst at the other end of the experience spectrum, rising amateur star Victor Dubuisson will be bidding to build on his burgeoning reputation.
The 20 year old, who won the 2009 European Amateur Championship, finished inside the top 20 on all three of his Challenge Tour appearances last season, with a tie for third place at the EurOpen de Lyon his best performance.
Along with two-time European Tour champion and pre-torunament favourite, Raphael Jacquelin and 2007 Challenge Tour Rankings winner Michael Lorenzo-Vera, Dubuisson is bidding to become the fourth Frenchman after Pascal Edmond (2000) and Sebastien Delagrange (2001) and José-Filipe Lima (2004) to take the title.
In total, there are five former winners in this year’s field: the 2005 champion Joakim Bäckström; the 2008 winner David Dixon of England; Lima, the winner in 2004; Argentina’s Cesar Monasterio, who won in 2006; and the 2007 champion Carl Suneson of Spain.
