Road to Rio paved with Challengers

With golf set to make its return to the Olympic Games tomorrow, the line-up for Rio 2016 has a distinctly Challenge Tour flavour to it, with 25 of the 60-man field having honed their skills on Europe’s top developmental tour.

Here, et.com takes a closer look at some of the Challenge Tour’s Olympians:

The leading lights

Notable, and much-publicised, absentees aside, there is a wealth of talent teeing it up in Rio de Janeiro, and many of the favourites are Challenge Tour alumni.

Open Champion Henrik Stenson won the Challenge Tour Rankings in 2000 and, befitting his status as the highest-ranked player in the field, is sure to be a strong contender this week.

The Swede is last out in the first round alongside another Challenge Tour graduate, Spain’s Rafa Cabrera Bello, a member of the Class of 2008 on the cusp of earning a Ryder Cup debut later this year.

Justin Rose, who spent much of the 1999 season on the Challenge Tour, leads the charge for Great Britain, while two-time Major Champion  Martin Kaymer – fourth on the Challenge Tour in 2006 – heads up the German challenge.

Familiar faces

Two of the Challenge Tour’s most recent graduates, Ricardo Gouveia and Brandon Stone, will hope Rio offers a golden – or even a silver or bronze – opportunity to further their already-glittering young careers.

Portugal’s Gouveia smashed all Challenge Tour records last season, topping the Road to Oman Rankings in style by winning the NBO Golf Classic Grand Final to set a new record for total prize money won in a season.

Stone finished 14^thin the 2015 Rankings and, within two months of graduation, he had won a maiden European Tour title at the BMW SA Open – the 23 year old will represent South Africa this week.

And Byeong Hun An, third in the 2014 Rankings and a memorable winner of the BMW PGA Championship last year, will follow in the footsteps of both of his table tennis-playing parents by representing South Korea at the Olympics.

Fox on form

Ryan Fox could not have flown to Brazil in better form after capturing a second Challenge Tour title at the Tayto Northern Ireland Open in partnership with Ulster Bank two weeks ago.

The New Zealander qualified for Rio in dramatic fashion, making back-to-back eagles late in his final round at the D+D REAL Slovakia Challenge – the last event before qualification closed – to finish in a tie for fourth, needing to come seventh or better.

There was even more drama at the same event as Espen Kofstad – knowing that only a top-two finish would do – came from four shots back on the final day to triumph in a play-off and earn his spot in the field as Norway’s representative (see highlights below).

And José-Filipe Lima makes it three winners on the 2016 Road to Oman who will tee it up in Rio this week, the Najeti Open champion representing Portugal alongside Gouveia.

Where Olympians are made

Wherever you look on the Olympic Golf Course this week, you are sure to see someone with Challenge Tour history.

Both Belgian players, Nicolas Colsaerts and Thomas Pieters, came through Challenge Tour ranks, as did the two Danes, Søren Kjeldsen and Thorbjørn Olesen, and Finnish duo Mikko Ilonen and Roope Kakko.

Kaymer’s compatriot Alex Cejka, Austria’s Bernd Wiesberger, Dutchman Joost Luiten and French duo Grégory Bourdy and Julien Quesne are other alumni, along with Chilean Felipe Aguilar, Marcus Fraser of Australia, Paraguay’s Fabrizio Zanotti and Italian Nino Bertasio.