Frenchman Edouard Dubois will sacrifice a place in his national Open Championship this week as he bids to secure the third Challenge Tour victory of his incredible season at the Princess by Schüco.
Just a couple of days before he lifted his second title in 21 days in Scotland last week, Dubois took a call from the French Federation asking if he would like to accept an invitation to play in The European Tour’s €3 million Alstom Open de France this week.
But despite the lure of teeing up alongside some of the world’s very best at Le Golf National in one of the most important tournaments for any French player, Dubois decided to focus on his long term goals and commit himself to the Challenge Tour.
It did not take too long, about 48 hours actually, for his visionary decision to come good as he picked up the Scottish Hydro Challenge trophy, just three weeks after taking home the Kärnten Golf Open presented by Mazda.
Dubois will now head to the PGA of Sweden National in Bara, near Malmö, as the current Challenge Tour Number One looking to secure the third title that would guarantee him an instant European Tour card.
“I took a call from the French Federation on Friday asking me if I would like to play in the French Open,” said Dubois after moving to €66,806 in the Rankings in Scotland. “It was tempting to say yes because the French Open is obviously one of the biggest titles that I can win in my life, but I decided to concentrate on the Challenge Tour and come to play in the Princess.
“My goal now is to win a third tournament on the Challenge Tour so that I can play on The European Tour every week, not just next week at Le Golf National, and to do that I have to play on the Challenge Tour. I hope I can win the third tournament. It would be fantastic to get to The European Tour as soon as possible.”
Should Dubois achieve his new goal, he will tee up alongside the man who is the driving force behind the Princess by Schüco, former Challenge Tour Rankings winner Henrik Stenson.
Stenson, who will take on US PGA Champion Martin Kaymer in The Princess Charity Challenge on Monday, July 4, is one of the Challenge Tour’s most successful graduates, having topped the Rankings in 2000, when he himself won three tournaments in the same year. That was before the introduction of the ‘three wins guarantees instant promotion’ rule and the Swede won the Rankings and joined The European Tour.
He became a prolific winner before holing the putt that secured the winning point in the 2006 Ryder Cup and then became the first former Challenge Tour player to win a World Golf Championship event in the 2007 WGC – Accenture Match Play Championship.
After enjoying so much success at the game’s highest level, Stenson decided to give something back to the Tour that launched his career and established The Princess by Schüco in a bid to give young Swedish players the opportunity to gain invaluable experience.
Now in its third year, The Princess by Schüco was named in honour of the tournament host’s daughter, Lisa, and is supported by one of Stenson’s main sponsors in clean energy company Schüco.
“It's very important to have a Challenge Tour event in Sweden, and there have been less and less recently. There used to be at least three in Sweden but they have been falling away, and it's really important for the young guys, for the next generation, to get a chance to play against other European players. And also, it's a way out in Europe if you play well.
“The Challenge Tour was very good for me and important in the development of my career. I was playing well and managed to get on The European Tour very, very quickly but you need to have events to be able to do that. Sooner or later, one of the Swedes winning this tournament, and boom, they are out there. So that's very important to have it.
“So it's important to have The Challenge Tour in Sweden, and also we do some work for charity. Most of that will be done with the exhibition game between myself and Martin.
“That will be great, with a lot of juniors coming out and I mean, for them to be able to see Martin Kaymer up close will hopefully bring lots of people to the event. Hopefully some of them will be there to see me I suppose! Adam Scott and Søren Kjeldsen joined me the first two years and a lot of people came over. It should bring between somewhere between 5,000 and 10,000 we hope.”
