This European Challenge Tour season has been notable for the amount of promising young players under the age of 24 making a big name for themselves in the embryonic stages of their professional careers. We pick five of them to look out for next week at the NBO Golf Classic Grand Final:
Ricardo Gouveia
Gouveia made headlines this year when he became the highest-ranked Portuguese player in the history of the Official World Golf Ranking, but the driven 24 year old has much bigger plans for his career.
Much like his stable-mate at Hambric Sports, Brooks Koepka, Gouveia makes no bones about the fact that he wants to conquer the world and has spoken openly about the fact that his eyes are firmly set on first position in the world ranking.
He has certainly backed that determination up with his results in 2015, adding a top ten finish at The Foshan Open to his one victory at the AEGEAN Airlines Challenge by Hartl Resort, three runner-up finishes, six further top tens and just a single missed cut in 17 appearances.
The NBO Golf Classic Grand Final will be a swansong for the Lisbon-born player but he will not be resting on his laurels and will be determined to finish it in style with a third career Challenge Tour victory.
Borja Virto Astudillo
The young Spaniard paved a path to The European Tour after just one year as a professional when he sealed a card at Qualifying School Final Stage in 2014, an early indicator of his potential.
His huge promise, however, has never been as evident as in the wake of a remarkable triumph at The Foshan Open last week, when he led the field after every day of one of the biggest events of the season before securing a two-shot victory in China in an incredible display of what the Pamplona-born player might call ‘cajones’.
The 24 year old has now secured a return to The Race to Dubai having decided midway through this campaign that he would forego the opportunity of a full Rookie season on the top tier, instead focusing on earning a better category through the Challenge Tour.
It was a brave decision which shows a maturity, patience and confidence that belie his years and has paid off in spades. Now, the shackles are off and he will be keen to claim a third title of the season and maybe even steal the title of Challenge Tour Rankings Winner at the 11th hour.
Haydn Porteous
This promising 21 year old provided a memorable curtain-raiser for the 2015 Challenge Tour season when he overcame his good friend, another one of South Africa’s talented young stars, Brandon Stone in a play-off at the Barclays Kenya Open.
That maiden victory on his home continent could well prove to be a career-defining one, as the Johannesburg player had started the season on invites, earning a full season on Europe’s top developmental tour courtesy of the triumph.
Porteous enters the season finale hoping to bookend his season with another victory and guarantee his place among the stars of the world game next year and, having put himself into contention at The Foshan Open before falling back at the weekend, his game is in smart shape.
The stocky young player’s career is definitely one to keep an eye on, and this week in Oman could be another big step towards the highest echelons of the game.
Mads Søgaard
Sometimes, the best players in the world are not the ones who produce unerring consistency, but the ones who come up with big results when the stakes are high.
Søgaard’s Challenge Tour season as a whole has been somewhat unremarkable, but he enters the NBO Golf Classic Grand Final just one place outside the all-important top 15 thanks primarily to a runner-up finish at the lucrative Kazakhstan Open – often regarded as a Major in Challenge Tour circles.
The curly-haired young Dane proved he has star potential when, in just his second appearance on The European Tour, he thrilled the home crowds at the Made in Denmark with a share of sixth place.
After last week’s performance of Lucas Bjerregaard – whose sole appearance in Oman on the Challenge Tour in 2013 yielded a huge runner-up finish which eventually paved a path to The European Tour – in Hong Kong, Danes have a lot to look forward to in the coming years with regard to their young players.
This 22 year old is another one of those of prospects but he needs something big this week to follow Bjerregaard onto the big time. He has produced when it mattered before, will he do it again?
Brandon Stone
Finland’s Roope Kakko, on the week of his maiden European Tour victory at the Madeira Islands Open – Portugal – BPI, spoke in no uncertain terms of how 20 year old Stone has “Major-winning potential.”
While the Challenge Tour is filled with players destined for great things in the future, such acclaim is a rare commodity, although it has in the past been attributed to the likes of Martin Kaymer, Brandon Grace and Brooks Koepka during their respective stints on the developmental tour.
Stone has been backing up that praise with a strong performance this year, but he will be disappointed not to have notched up a victory in a season when the chance did present itself on more than one occasion.
Could next week be the one when he fulfils his endless promise on a Greg Norman-designed course upon which, incidentally, Kakko earned a massive victory on his way up the ladder back to the top tier in 2013?
