Four of our five picks made the cut last week in Scotland, with Gary Boyd just missing out on a play-off spot. Can we emulate that form this week with our Five to Watch for the AEGEAN Airlines Challenge Tour by Hartl Resort? Click here to see who made the grade…
Bernd Ritthammer
A relatively local lad, Ritthammer resides in Gunzenhausen, just a three-hour drive from this week’s Hartl Resort venue and he will return to the Beckenbauer Course with some pleasant memories from his last outing.
The 28 year old stormed up the leaderboard in the final round of last year’s event, a seven under par 65 moving him upward of 26 places for a tied third place finish.
Nicknamed The Hammer, he proclaims on his Twitter biography that he is ‘trying to nail it’ and, after a couple of very strong showings on The European Tour this year – a tied eighth finish at the AfrAsia Bank Mauritius Open in May and a share of seventh at last month’s Nordea Masters – this might well be the place where he chisels out a maiden Challenge Tour title.
Ricardo Gouveia
If consistency is the key, myriad doors will soon be opening for this young man from Portugal’s idyllic golfing south coast.
The 23 year old has not missed a single cut in eight appearances in 2015 and all but one of those produced top 20 finishes. It took him just seven starts to claim a maiden professional victory last year at the EMC Golf Challenge Open 2014, so surely it is only a matter of time before he doubles his tally?
The former Palmer Cup winner carded a final round 68 in tough conditions in the final round of last week’s SSE Scottish Hydro Challenge hosted by Macdonald Hotels and Resorts and, with 27 of his 36 rounds of golf this season producing rounds of 70 or under, it is now just a case of putting four low ones together.
Haydn Porteous
His compatriot Jake Roos won the season-opening Barclays Kenya Open and this event last year en route to European Tour graduation, so will Porteous interpret that as an omen, having claimed the Kenyan title in March of this year?
Certainly, his form is not far away from another title. Better final rounds in his last two appearances and the 20 year old might have done better than a share of 16th at the SSE Scottish Hydro Challenge and a tied 18th finish at the Swiss Challenge presented by Association Suisse de Golf.
On the week before his 21st birthday, the Johannesburg man certainly looks ready to take another huge step towards The European Tour.
Jens Dantorp
Having proven his European Tour pedigree at last month’s Nordea Masters, where he lead the field after the first and second rounds, Dantorp has not quite taken that form straight back to the Challenge Tour, missing the cut last week in Scotland after a top 25 finish at Saint Omer.
But, crucially, he is back on a course upon which he is comfortable and a top ten finish here in 2013 set him up for a summer in which he claimed a maiden title at the Rolex Trophy.
His best Challenge Tour result of the season came courtesy of a runner-up finish at the Kärnten Golf Open presented by Mazda in nearby Austria, so maybe his love for central Europe will yield another big week at Hartl Resort.
Chris Hanson
Hanson was leading by three with five holes to play here last year
The Englishman has been there or thereabouts come the final stretch on Sunday enough times to suggest that a first victory is on the horizon, and it was over the Beckenbauer course last year where he came closest to breaking that duck.
Leading by three with five holes to play, proceeded to bogey every hole on the way home and Roos was the one to take advantage.
Provided Hanson enters this week with the positives from that, his best finish of the season, he could make a big impression this week and, at the very least, add to the two top ten finishes he has earned already this season.
