The Rolex Trophy, one of the European Challenge Tour’s most prestigious events, will be aiming for a hat-trick of hat-trick winners this year after the past two winners of the event secured automatic promotion to The European Tour as a result of their victories.
The last two editions of the Rolex Trophy have proven worthy of the lucrative event, which first took place in the augural year of the Challenge Tour in 1989, as Kristoffer Broberg secured the title in 2012 to make it three wins in just five tournaments, creating history in the process.
His crowning victory, which proved not to be his last as the gifted Swede went on to win the Crowne Plaza Copenhagen Challenge hosted by Royal Golf Club later in the year, came courtesy of a 40-foot putt at the last and meant his rise through the Challenge Tour was the fastest in history.
That came after the 2011 edition produced a similarly spectacular result when Frenchman Benjamin Hebert completed another swift rise to the top tier of European golf thanks to a one-shot victory at Golf Club de Genève.
That was his third title in less than two months and meant he could play the rest of 2011 on The European Tour.
Aside from their incredible achievements in graduating to The European Tour, Broberg and Hebert joined a prestigious list of winners at the Rolex Trophy.
Hebert’s compatriot Julien Quesne secured one of two Challenge Tour titles in Geneva in 2009 before going on to become a European Tour winner, thanks to a stunning victory at the Open de Andalucía Costa del Sol last year.
Other players to have captured the Rolex Trophy before going on to European Tour success include Alex Noren, who won in 2006 before progressing to claim three titles on the top tier, and Scotsman Marc Warren, whose win in Switzerland in 2005 was the springboard for continued success after graduating from the Challenge Tour.
